The Fire Within a Ninjago Cowboy
by The Mayor of Ninjago City
Summary: In this tale of the Old West, the brown-haired cowboy from Garmadon Ranch falls in love with a lovely blonde girl who just arrived in Ninjago Town to work at the saloon. But together they get caught up in the sinister plans of her boss, Morro. Is this because of the secret she's keeping? How will the couple escape his clutches? And will wedding bells ring? For whom?
1. Saturday Night

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Howdy pardners! I am The Mayor of Ninjago City. My family member, measuremesky, introduced me to this website and I love it! We are both huge Ninjago fans.**

 **When our family was on a recent vacation to Arizona, we visited the Goldfield Ghost Town in Apache Junction, and I got the idea to use our favorite ninjas in a story about the Old West. I also used the OC of measuremesky's story, The Fire Within.**

 **Just for purposes of this story,** **I dismantled all the canon family relationships except for those related to Garmadon: Lloyd, Misako, and Wu.** **Morro is a man in his 50s, and the OC, Sam, comes from a different family background than she does in measuremesky's story.**

 **Hope you enjoy the story! But if you don't like it, then just stop reading and go on to read The Fire Within by measuremesky, which is definitely a great story!**

* * *

CHAPTER 1 - Saturday Night

The Morro Saloon in Ninjago Town was busy on Saturday night. As usual, ranch hands from all over the county had come to whoop it up and have a bit of fun at the end of a hard workweek. But Sheriff Lloyd Garmadon always kept things under control. He was the nephew of the owner of the largest ranch in the county, as well as the youngest sheriff in the whole of Ninjago. In the minds of most folks outside the county, these two facts would ordinarily disqualify him as an effective sheriff. But to those who lived in his jurisdiction, his badge was earned. He did not put up with any nonsense, and they knew it.

The ranch hands from Garmadon Ranch, the county's largest ranch, rode into town to patronize the saloon. The black-haired cowboy named Cole was planning to sit at a poker table and play his weekly game with friends from other ranches. Platinum-haired Zane was going to enjoy a sarsaparilla and hang out with the saloon piano player, who sometimes let Zane do the playing. Jay, the auburn-haired ranch hand, planned to sit at a corner table, sipping root beer and admiring a lovely saloon girl named Nya as she waited on tables. She liked him back, for she spent each of her ten-minute breaks sitting and talking with him. Jay dreamed of the day that he would have enough money saved to buy her an engagement ring, but right now he was still a poor cowboy.

The one patron of the saloon who was not planning to have a good time was Kai, the brunette ranch hand. Like last week and the weeks before that, he was simply going to sit alone at the bar and not talk to anyone, just down one beer after another. He had been doing this ever since a lovely red-headed lass named Skylor had rejected his proposal of marriage and left town with another man, crushing his heart into a million pieces. He thought that if he drank enough, he could drown the memory of her.

But the best laid plans of mice and cowboys often go awry, for when Kai sat himself on a stool at the end of the bar, an unfamiliar but very pleasant female voice behind him said, "What'll you have, cowboy?" He whirled around and laid his eyes on a saloon girl he had never seen before, a blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty dressed in turquoise. He was immediately smitten.

"Uh, howdy, my name's Kai," he said, politely tipping his hat. "And who might you be?"

"Name's Samantha. But folks call me Sam," she replied, smiling.

"Nice to meet you, Sam. Are you new in town? Haven't seen you around these parts before."

"Yep, just arrived last Monday. Came out west after settling my daddy's estate. He passed away a few months ago." Sam's smile disappeared as she thought of her late father.

Kai could tell she was still in mourning. "Sorry to hear that," he sympathized. "I lost my daddy when I was knee high to a grasshopper."

"Thanks," Sam said. The pain of losing her beloved father was starting to subside, but she still had a long way to go in the healing process. Nevertheless, there was something about the soft brown eyes of this handsome young cowboy that was comforting.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she brought herself back to the present business at hand.

"So what can I get you this evening, Kai?" she asked.

"I'll start out with a beer. And I think I'll join my friend over there," he said, pointing to where Jay was sitting.

"Sure thing, Kai. Coming right up!" Sam cheerfully went to get Kai's beer while Kai stood up and moved to Jay's table in the corner.

Jay was dreamily looking over at Nya across the room and thus was startled when Kai took a seat at his table.

"Hey, pardner, what brings you to my corner of the corral? Lately you've been drinking your sorrows away on Saturday nights."

"Not this Saturday night."

"What's so different about tonight?" Jay asked.

Just then, Sam showed up at the table with Kai's drink.

"Here you go, Kai. One beer." She set it in front of him, then turned to Jay. "And I'd be happy to refill your glass...?"

"Sam, this here is my friend Jay," Kai said as he made introductions. "Jay, this is Samantha, a new girl who started this week. She goes by the name of Sam."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," Jay said as he politely tipped his hat.

"Likewise," Sam smiled. "Say, you wouldn't happen to be the Jay that Nya talks about all the time, would you?" she asked, motioning to her fellow saloon girl across the room.

Jay turned beet red as Kai laughed at his embarrassment. "He's none other!"

"Kai!" Jay hissed through gritted teeth.

"Sam, I think Jay here is fine for now with his root beer," Kai said as he finished chuckling, "but come join us when you have a break." He gazed into her beautiful hypnotic blue eyes.

That's mighty kind of you, Kai," she smiled. "I believe I will, though it won't be for another"-she checked the clock over the bar-"ninety minutes."

"Looking forward to it," he said, giving her a charming lopsided grin. She smiled back and began to tend to other patrons of the saloon.

"Ha! Now I know what's so different about tonight for you, pardner," Jay exclaimed, giving Kai a punch in the arm.

"Yep, I think tonight I'm gonna do me a little star gazing," Kai said as he settled back in his wooden chair, drink in hand, and watched a lovely blonde ray of light twinkle around the room.

"Me, too," Jay said as he swigged a gulp of root beer. As he watched a raven-haired star named Nya, he said, "Yep, the sky is sure beautiful tonight!"


	2. Later on Saturday Night

Chapter 2 - Later on Saturday Night

As Nya bustled about the saloon, she spotted a familiar, friendly man walking through the swinging doors who didn't usually show up on a Saturday night. It was Doc Julien, a kindly old widower who was Ninjago Town's doctor. Tonight he seemed to be acting a bit nervous.

"Howdy, Doc!" she greeted him. "Nice to see you. What brings you to the Morro Saloon tonight?"

"Uh, good evening, Miss Nya. I, uh, am here because I have a meeting with Mr. Morro."

"I'll sure be happy to tell him you're here. Can I get you something to wet your whistle?"

"Perhaps a sarsaparilla would be refreshing, thank you."

"One sarsaparilla, coming right up then!"

Nya walked over to Morro's office on the far side of the saloon and knocked on the door. "Mr. Morro, Doc Julien is here to see you. Says he has a meeting with you."

Nya had expected that Morro would simply shout through the closed door, "Send him in." So she was startled when the door suddenly swung open and Morro's tall, menacing frame filled the doorway. He brushed right past her and weaved his way through the throng of saloon customers until he spotted the doctor just inside the swinging doors, fidgeting with the hat he held in his hands.

"Uh, good evening, Mr. Morro," Doc Julien said.

"Julien," Morro responded gruffly. "Come into my office." He tilted his head in that direction, indicating that he wanted the doctor to proceed. The doctor began walking and Morro closely followed him.

They walked past Nya into the office. She was still standing outside the door with her mouth open.

Morro poked his head back out the door. "Don't you have work to do?" he growled at her.

"Yes, sir," she responded. After two years of working for him, she still felt a little scared around him.

He slammed the door shut.

She remembered she did have work to do. Doc Julien had ordered a sarsaparilla. She went to the bar and asked Rufus, the bartender, to pour one for her.

Carrying the drink on a tray, she walked back to Morro's office. But just as she was about to knock on the door, she heard the men having a heated discussion.

"I told you already that it would be illegal to simply sell it to you from my apothecary unless there was a medicinal purpose," the doctor said.

"Look, Julien," Morro said with exasperation in his voice. "I am the richest man in town and I always get what I want. And I want your potion because I want to trick Sam into drinking it tomorrow morning so she'll marry me. And if you don't give me what I want, I'll make sure you never work in Ninjago Town again!"

Nya, shocked and upset at what she heard, dropped the tray. Shattered glass and liquid sprayed all over the place. The office door flew open.

Anger filled Morro's eyes as he surveyed the mess and the frightened girl.

"How much talk did you hear?" he demanded to know, narrowing his eyes at her.

"N-nothing, I s-swear!" Nya stammered.

"I don't believe you," he said in a quiet voice, his eyes still narrowed. He brought his face close to hers.

"From now on, you stay away from those Garmadon Ranch boys. I know you especially like the one in the blue kerchief. I've only tolerated them because they're regular customers, but Wu has always been a thorn in my side, just like his brother before him, and ever since Lloyd became the sheriff, he's been a pain in my business dealings, too."

"So stay away from them, or you're fired! Understand?"

"Y-yes, sir!" Tears welled up in Nya's eyes.

"Good! And clean up this mess now!" Morro yelled. And with that, he slammed the door shut again.

The tears fell from Nya's eyes as she bent down and absent-mindedly used her bar rag to push the sarsaparilla glass shards into a small pile. Her thoughts raced. She had just heard her boss make multiple threats: to run Doc Julien out of town, to drug Sam with a potion, and to fire Nya herself if she continued to associate with her favorite cowboy.

Speaking of said cowboy, she felt a tap on her shoulder and when she looked up, he was holding a mop and a fresh bar rag.

"You might want to use the mop so you don't get cuts on your hands," Jay said with a concerned expression.

Knowing Morro might be listening from the other side of the door, Nya stood up slowly and said, "I can handle this myself, Jay. Go away."

Jay was taken aback. "What?"

"I said go away, Jay," Nya said, louder and firmer.

"B-but, Nya.."

"GO AWAY!"

An expression of hurt crept across Jay's face. "All right," he said softly. He set the mop and bar rag down, and he turned and walked away.

Nya didn't care who saw her crying as she cleaned up the mess.


	3. Closing Time

CHAPTER 3 - Closing Time

Kai had been sitting by himself at the corner table for the past two or so hours. Jay had left the saloon early to ride back to Garmadon Ranch alone. It was right after that loud crash when Nya dropped the drink. From Kai's vantage point, it looked like Nya had yelled at Jay. Jay, who was normally a talker, actually did not want to talk about what happened when he had returned to the table. Instead, he ordered a whiskey from Sam and downed it quickly, then departed.

Kai was a little frustrated. Tonight was the first time in weeks that he was in a good mood, thanks to the pretty blonde saloon girl who seemed to like him as much as he liked her, but now his friend was the one having woman troubles. Kai decided to confront Nya at closing time to find out what had happened between her and Jay.

At five minutes to midnight, the punctual Sheriff Lloyd strolled through the swinging doors into the bar and loudly announced that the saloon would be closing in five minutes.

The size of the crowd had thinned by that time, but enough patrons were still around such that the scraping of wooden chairs on the floor, as they stood up, created a din of sound.

Cole walked up to Kai with a big smile on his face.

"Lucky night, I'm guessing?" Kai asked.

"Thaaat's right!" the cowboy with the black kerchief responded, in a cocky fashion. "I got me a few more dollars in my pocket now than there were a few hours ago!"

Just then, Sam walked up to Kai with a glass of beer. "Here's one for the road, cowboy...on the house!" She winked at him as she walked away. "See you next week!"

Kai grinned. "You can bet on it!"

When she was out of earshot, Cole let out a whistle. "I see you had a lucky night, too!"

Kai's face reddened.

Cole looked around for their fellow Garmadon Ranch men. "I see Zane, but where's Jay?"

"Jay left a few hours ago, actually. Something happened between him and Nya. He wouldn't tell me what it was, but I'm going to find out from Nya. You and Zane go on back to the ranch without me."

"All right, but don't be too long. You know how Mr. Wu gets when we stay out too late."

"Yep," Kai said in between chugs of beer. "I do."

At midnight, Sheriff Lloyd strolled back into the saloon. "Closing time!" he hollered. The few patrons that remained in the saloon headed toward the door.

Cole said goodbye to Kai and went to find Zane. Kai saw that Nya was carrying a broom and was walking over to a corner of the room in order to sweep the floor after the evening's festivities. Kai followed her.

"Howdy, Nya," he greeted her.

"Howdy back, Kai," she responded in a civil manner, not necessarily warm and friendly. She could guess why he was standing there and she did not want to converse with him.

"So how is Jay?" Kai asked. His question confirmed for her why he was standing there.

"Look, Kai, I don't want to talk about it," she said as she turned away from him and began to sweep.

He put an arm in front of her, blocking her progress. "Why not?"

Nya sighed. "I'm forbidden by Mr. Morro to talk to any of you Garmadon Ranch boys."

Kai's jaw dropped. "Since when?"

"Since I heard Doc Julien talking with him in his office."

Just then, Nya looked over Kai's shoulder and gasped. Kai turned around to see Morro standing there.

"Hey, Garmadon boy, stay away from my saloon girls, y'hear? I saw you making eyes at my new girl tonight."

Kai was not intimidated by the saloon owner. Morro was a man of few scruples and would sell his own mother if he could make a buck.

"Last time I checked, Ninjago was still a free country. I can do what I want," the cowboy with the red kerchief replied.

A second later, Morro's gun was pointed at his head.


	4. Sunday at 12:05 am

Chapter 4 - Sunday at 12:05 am

Just then, Sheriff Lloyd walked into the saloon for a third time, ready to clear out any stragglers. Upon seeing Morro aiming his gun at Kai, he hurried over to them.

"What's going on here?" he demanded.

"Sheriff Lloyd," Morro began, keeping his eyes and his aim on Kai, "this patron should be arrested for unlawful restraint of my employee."

"Put the gun down, Morro," Sheriff Lloyd commanded. Morro slowly lowered his arm.

"Now, you say Kai was restraining Nya? Is this true, Nya?" the sheriff asked the saloon girl.

Nya was amazed at how deftly Morro had twisted the events to his advantage. Kai had indeed restrained her when he had put his arm in front of her; she could not deny it.

"Yes, Sheriff," she answered, looking at the floor.

Kai's jaw dropped. He was also amazed at how Morro was able to make him look like the bad guy.

A sly grin spread across Morro's face. "I guess you have no choice but to arrest him, Sheriff."

Sheriff Lloyd sighed. He had to admit Morro was right.

"All right, Kai, turn around."

"What? Are you going to handcuff me?"

"Unfortunately for you, it's standard procedure."

Kai rolled his eyes. Lloyd wasn't one to bend rules. "All right, Sheriff," he grudgingly complied. Then once Kai was shackled, the sheriff led him out of the saloon and down the street to the jail.

After Lloyd and Kai left, Morro was not done dealing with Nya.

"What did you tell that hothead ranch boy?"

"I didn't tell him anything!" the girl answered nervously.

"Well, I'm going to be watching you, so be careful!" he threatened. "Come with me."

Morro grabbed Nya's wrist and pulled her to the bar. Then he let go of her and clapped his hands loudly. "Ladies, ladies, please come here!" he called, summoning all the saloon girls.

Sam came out from the back room where she had been washing drinking glasses. The four other saloon girls came over from the places at which they had been working. Besides Nya and Sam, there was Brooke, Jenny, Violet, and Star.

"Ladies, after you tidy up the place tonight, I need you to come here about eight o'clock tomorrow morning and give it an extra shine. There's going to be a wedding reception here at noon and the place needs to look extra nice."

"Oooh, who's the lucky couple?" Star asked.

"The couple wishes to remain anonymous for now," Morro answered, "but that information will be known soon enough. Get back to work now."

The girls began to disperse and resume their tasks. Nya began to walk away with Sam, but Morro stopped them.

"Sam, go on up to your room for the night," Morro told her. "You must be tired after working your first Saturday night here. Nya here will be happy to do your closing time chores for you."

"All right. I appreciate the rest," Sam replied. "I'm still getting used to being on my feet for so long. Thanks, Nya!"

As she walked out the door to reach the stairway to her room on the second-floor balcony, Morro gave Nya a menacing glare. Nya looked back at him fearfully as she retreated to the back room to wash glasses.

Morro walked out the saloon's back door to talk to yet another employee on his payroll. The employee's name was Archer, and he took care of the more unsavory tasks assigned to him by Morro.

Morro found Archer seated on a chair, leaning back against the wall of the building and holding his gun.

"Archer," Morro said, "I need you to do something tonight."

"What is it, boss?" the old man replied with a grin which revealed several missing teeth.

"I need you to go inside and keep an eye on Nya. Make sure she doesn't talk to anyone, including the other girls, while she does her closing chores. Then escort her to her room when she's done and guard her door so she doesn't go anywhere until eight o'clock in the morning."

"Hee hee. Can I guard her from the inside of her door?" Archer chortled.

"Nice try, Archer, but no."


	5. Sunday at 3:00 am

Chapter 5 - Sunday at 3:00 am

Kai had to admit that overall, Sheriff Lloyd was a decent guy, even though his strict adherence to following law procedures was sometimes annoying.

Lloyd had sent Deputy Dareth out to Garmadon Ranch to fetch Lloyd's uncle, Mr. Wu, so that the ranch owner could post bail for his incarcerated ranch hand, and therefore Kai would not have to spend the whole night in jail.

On the ride back to Garmadon Ranch, Kai got an earful from his boss about getting in trouble. Kai suspected that some of the yelling was simply a result of Wu being grumpy at getting wakened from a sound sleep.

When they had arrived back at the ranch, Kai got some ribbing from his friends about getting arrested, though they all knew the charge was trumped up by Morro.

Jay was very happy to learn that Nya's rejection of him was not a personal one; she was merely following orders from her boss. But if things didn't change, seeing her next week could be a problem. It dawned on Kai that he'd have the same problem if he wanted to see Sam again.

After waiting until his bunkmates fell asleep, Kai sneaked out again, back to Ninjago Town. He wondered what had caused the unspoken truce between Morro and the Garmadon Ranch folks to become unbalanced. Why did Morro suddenly forbid his saloon girls to socialize with the ranch hands? Apparently it had something to do with Doc Julien, so Kai planned to talk to the physician. Perhaps he'd even fake an injury if he had to, in order to get the opportunity to talk to him.

Kai reached the red brick bungalow on the corner of Main and First where Doc Julien practiced medicine on the lower level and lived on the upper level. Kai thought it was strange that all the lamps in the house appeared to be lit at three o'clock in the morning. He tied his horse in front and walked up the steps, then knocked on the door.

The doctor did not answer the knock.

Kai knocked again. Still no answer.

Kai took a deep breath and opened the door. The strong smell of whiskey greeted him as he entered the doctor's office.

The apothecary cabinet drawers appeared to be in disarray; some were pulled out halfway and some were missing. A steamer trunk was located in the center of the room. The open lid revealed that it was half filled with physician-related items. It was as if the doctor was packing up his belongings and leaving town.

Kai heard unsteady footsteps approaching from another room. In walked Doc Julien carrying a bottle of spirits and a glass. He was drunk. He halted when he saw Kai.

"Kai," said the doctor, swaying. "What bringsh you here at thish time of night? Are you feeling shick?"

"Don't like to say it, Doc, but you look like you're the one having trouble. Let me help you sit down."

"Thanksh," the doctor replied as Kai guided him to a chair. "I have caused lotsh of trouble."

"What happened?" Kai asked, seating himself in a nearby chair.

"I did shomething really bad, Kai. I shold a potion to Morro and I shouldn't have."

"You sold a potion to Morro? Why does he need one?" Kai wondered.

"Well, you know that pretty blonde shaloon girl, the new one?"

"Sam," Kai nodded. "She is pretty."

"Morro'sh gonna trick her into drinking the potion in the morning sho he can marry her after the church shervice."

"What?!" Kai immediately stood up. "Marry her?! That dirty rotten scoundrel! I've had enough of him. I'm going to run him out of town tonight!"

"No, no, don't confront him, Kai!" The old man's grip on Kai's forearm was surprisingly strong for an inebriated person. "I'm jusht going to leave town quietly with the knowledge that I ruined one young girl'sh life. If Sheriff Lloyd findsh out about the potion, he'll confront Morro, and blood might be shed in a gun battle. At the very leasht, what would happen ish Morro'll come after me becaush he'd know it wash me that told you."

 _Or he might think Nya told me_ , Kai realized _. That explains why Morro wants to keep her away from us. She knows about the potion and he doesn't want to risk her opening her mouth. He knows we'd tell Lloyd._

The doctor poured himself another drink. He downed it quickly, then slammed the empty glass down on the table next to him.

"I'm shuch a coward, Kai. I wash too afraid of Morro to shay no. He threatened to run me out of town if I didn't do what he shaid. And I like it here in Ninjago Town. And the townshfolk are so nice, especially the widow Misako."

Kai sat down again. "And we like you, too, Doc. It's that son of a barnswallow, Morro, that's spoiling everything. But don't you worry. We'll find a way to defeat Morro without him ever knowing you told me anything."

Doc Julien's eyelids drooped as he said, "That shounds good, Kai." He slumped back in the chair and passed out in a drunken stupor.

Time was of the essence, so Kai had to leave him in the chair. Kai jumped on his horse and rode toward the Morro Saloon.


	6. Sunday at 4:00 am

Chapter 6 - Sunday at 4:00 am

About a half-block away from the saloon, Kai got off his horse and tied it up. Something told him he should approach the saloon as quietly as possible.

Kai's mission was to find Sam and warn her about Morro's plans for her in the morning. From the bank across the street he studied the saloon in the glow of the moonlight. The saloon girls' sleeping quarters were located on the second floor balcony over the porch of the saloon. Getting to the balcony required climbing the set of stairs at the side of the building. Six white doors lined the second floor balcony, each door leading to a small room which housed one girl apiece. Jay had once told him that the door on the left was Nya's.

Problem was, he didn't know which of the other doors was Sam's.

Suddenly the door next to the one on the left creaked open. Kai hid himself behind a bank pillar and watched.

As fate would have it, he saw Sam emerge from the room. She was a vision of loveliness in the moonlight. Her golden hair, which was pinned up earlier that evening during saloon hours, was now loose and flowing around her shoulders. She wore a long white robe over her nightdress.

Kai watched her close her door and walk to the stairway. She paused for a moment. Kai couldn't tell why. He peered into the shadows to get a better look.

She was talking to Archer.

Morro's hired rascal was sitting at the stairway, guarding the access to the girls' rooms. It appeared that Sam was asking for permission to go somewhere.

Archer must have granted permission, for she then descended the stairs.

Kai realized with some embarrassment that she was heading to the outhouse in the back of the saloon. He reminded himself, however, that this would be a perfect opportunity to speak to her. He ran around the other side of the saloon, out of the sight of Archer, and arrived in the back just in time to see her close the outhouse door. While he waited for her to reappear, he looked around for a private area where he could speak to her. Perhaps the livery stable next door would be a good place. The horses wouldn't care.

In a few minutes she emerged, and though he hated to do it, he couldn't risk her making a sound when he approached, so as soon as she closed the outhouse door again, he wrapped one arm across her chest and placed the hand of his other arm on her mouth and dragged her over to the livery stable.

He had to use all his might in getting her over there, for she was struggling hard. She even kicked him in the shins.

When Kai thought they were out of Archer's earshot, he started whispering "Sam! It's me, Kai! I have to tell you something!"

Sam realized he was Kai and stopped fighting him. By this time they were inside the stable and could now talk in low voices instead of whispers.

"Oh, Kai, I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were you!" she apologized. "Will you be all right?"

"Well, I might have to buy some new shins at the general store, but I'll be all right," Kai joked as he rubbed his lower legs. "But, seriously, I have to tell you that Morro has some awful plans in store for you, in the morning!"

"He does?" Sam's eyes widened in fear.

"Yep. He's going to trick you into drinking a potion and then, while you're under the influence, he's going to get hitched to you in a ceremony after the church service."

"Ohhh, my," Sam sat on the edge of a horse's water trough to steady herself as she comprehended the significance of Kai's news. "Mr. Morro did say we had to get ready for a wedding reception in the saloon. And yesterday afternoon I saw Bansha in his office hemming what looked like a wedding dress."

Bansha was an odd, wizened old lady who Morro kept on his payroll to do miscellaneous jobs here and there.

Kai wanted to relieve the anxiety that he saw building up in Sam's face. He knelt down and took her hands in his. "Don't worry," he assured her, "we'll get out of this pickle."

Sam was touched that he used the pronoun "we". "Thanks for the assurance," she smiled, squeezing his hands. She noticed that his hands, though roughened by ranch work, also felt tender at the same time.

"The pleasure's all mine," he smiled back with a twinkle in his soft brown eyes.

Suddenly, the glint of a dagger at Kai's throat startled them. Archer stood behind him, holding the weapon.

"Well, looky here. Looks like we got us a situation. Cowboy kidnaps a saloon girl, has a little fun with her, I catch him and kill him and look like a hero."

"I'm not having fun with her, you dirty dog," Kai retorted, being careful not to move his neck. He wished he had his gun with him, but when he had left Garmadon Ranch earlier, he didn't think he would need it.

"I know _you're_ not having fun with her," Archer grinned, "but after I kill you, _I'm_ going to have some fun, and I'll claim you did it!"

Sam gasped.

"That's what you think!" Kai replied as he jabbed his elbow upward into Archer's gut, knocking him over and forcing him to drop the dagger.

The two men fought among the hay and horses all around the stable, each man alternately gaining and losing the upper hand of the fight. Sam picked up the dagger and went into a corner of the stable, waiting for an opportunity when it would come in handy.

Then, with a shove, Archer caused Kai to land on his back with a splash in a water trough. As the cowboy raised his head out of the water and shook his wet hair out of his eyes, Archer pulled his gun and pointed it at the ranch hand with the red kerchief.

"Prepare to meet yer Maker!" he cackled as he cocked his weapon.

Suddenly, the sound of three other guns being cocked filled the air.

The guns were pointed at Archer. They belonged to Cole, Jay, and Zane.


	7. Sunday at 5:00 am

Chapter 7 - Sunday at 5:00 am

"Um, how long have you boys been here?" Kai asked as Cole pulled him out of the water trough with one arm while still pointing his gun at Archer with the other.

"Oh, quite a spell," Cole breezily answered. "We decided not to butt in right away 'cause we were having fun watching you tussle with ol' Archer. Wanna help us truss him up?"

Kai glared at the creepy hired gunman. "Gladly."

"We probably should get Miss Sam back up to her room," Zane interjected. "I don't think Morro would be too happy to find out she was in our company."

"You're right, Zane," Kai agreed, attempting to wring water out of his shirt. "I guess you'll have to escort her upstairs, 'cause I'm too wet. But let me talk to her for just one minute outside. In the meantime, start trussin' him."

Sam was still standing in the corner, holding the dagger and watching what was going on. Kai smiled and held his arm out to her, indicating it was safe for her to come over.

"Let's go outside and talk for a minute, then Zane'll take you back upstairs," Kai said, motioning to the cowboy in the white kerchief. Zane tipped his hat in greeting.

Kai took the dagger out of Sam's hand. Then, with his free hand grasping hers, he led her outside the stable, still dripping wet.

"I wanted to talk to you outside because I didn't want Archer to hear what we're saying," Kai explained. "I wish I could go to the Sheriff with what I found out, but my source doesn't want the law to know. I guess I can't do much to protect you from the potion, but I'll be at the church to prevent you from saying 'I do' to that lying sack of cow dung."

"I really appreciate that, Kai," Sam said. "You've been so sweet to me, and we haven't even known each other for twelve hours. You even put your life in danger for me. Thank you for your chivalry."

She leaned in close to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Kai gave her a lopsided grin after she had pulled away.

"You're welcome," he replied, feeling slightly dizzy.

"See you at the church," she smiled.

"Take care," he smiled back, then he reluctantly let go of her hand and went back inside to let Zane know it was time to escort her back to her room.

He saw that Archer was already all trussed up, which was no surprise, considering that the Garmadon Ranch boys were known throughout the county for their superior cowboy skills.

"What should we do with him, boys?" Cole asked as he brushed his hands together after tying the last knot.

"I got a suggestion about what _you_ can do," Archer sneered as he spit at them.

"Oooh, I have a feeling that's not a gentlemanly suggestion, Archer," Jay chided him. " _My_ suggestion is to leave you here the rest of the night. I'm sure someone will find you at daybreak or thereabouts."

"I like that suggestion," Kai agreed. "Oh, and by the way, Archer, here's your dagger." He threw the weapon in the nearest water trough.

The cowboys laughed as they walked out of the stable, leaving Archer to swear at them.

Zane rejoined them upon returning from the second floor balcony.

"Miss Sam is safely back in her room," he reported. "I checked the other girls' doors, and they are safely locked in, too, so Miss Nya is all right, too."

"Thanks, Zane," Kai and Jay responded simultaneously.

"So, boys, what made you follow me?" Kai asked as his fellow ranch boys mounted their horses.

"Well, pardner," Jay explained, "after you and Mr. Wu got back to the ranch and we all turned in for the night, I heard your horse snort and I didn't figure you were saddling him up just to go to the outhouse. So I got the boys up, and off we went after you."

"So you followed me to Doc Julien's? And heard our conversation?"

"Yep, and we want to defeat that son of a barnswallow, too," Cole said as he steered his horse in the direction of Kai's horse, tied up half a block down.

"The way I see it at this point, we can stop Sam from saying 'I do' at the altar. If she doesn't say that, the marriage won't be legal," Kai said as he walked alongside the others' horses.

At this point, they reached the spot where Kai's horse was standing. As Kai untied and mounted, the ranch hands noted that the eastern sky was brightening. Dawn was approaching.

"Well, I reckon we won't be getting any more sleep now. We'll have to make two pots of coffee when we get back," Cole observed.

As they began to ride back to Garmadon Ranch, Kai commented, "Gonna be an interesting morning, for sure!"


	8. Early Sunday Morning for Sam

Chapter 8 - Early Sunday Morning for Sam

Sam said good night to Zane and closed the door to her room and locked it.

She was unnerved by the news that Kai had told her during his 'kidnapping' of her.

In spite of her worry, however, her heart fluttered at the thought that the handsome brunette cowboy from Garmadon Ranch cared for her so much, even though they had just met each other a few hours earlier. It made her feel better that he would be at the church to protect her.

Suddenly she thought of a way to protect herself, if the circumstance presented itself.

After a few minutes of planning, she returned to her bed. It was difficult for her to go back to sleep, but finally she did.

Sam woke to the sound of the click of her door being unlocked by a key. The door slowly opened.

The only other person who would have a key besides herself would be...

Morro.

The doorway filled up with his tall, menacing figure. He was carrying a glass of clear liquid. Behind him stood Bansha, carrying a package wrapped in brown paper.

"Mr. Morro, I am indecent," Sam protested as she held the bedcover up to her chin.

"I just need to talk to you, Sam," Morro said, entering the room, with Bansha following. He closed the door behind them. Sam gripped the bedcover tighter.

"An hour ago I found Archer hog tied in the stable next door. He said the Garmadon Ranch boys did that to him after he found you and that hothead cowboy, Kai, together. What were you doing out there with him?"

Sam swallowed hard and started out by telling the truth. "I went into the outhouse, and when I came out, Kai grabbed me from behind and dragged me to the stable."

"Then Archer showed up after Kai knelt down and professed his love for me," she concluded. That part about Kai maybe wasn't so true, but she wouldn't have minded if it were. She certainly wasn't going to admit to Morro the true reason for Kai's visit - to warn her about the potion that was undoubtedly in the glass Morro was holding.

Morro thought for a moment. He seemed to believe her story. "That must have been traumatic for you to be seized like that in the middle of the night," he said. "I thought you might need something to help calm your nerves, so I brought you this special drink I made." He watched her closely for her reaction.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Morro. It was indeed a traumatic night," Sam agreed. As she sat up in the bed for the purpose of drinking the liquid, the heavy bedcover began to slide down, exposing her bare shoulders.

"Oh dear, how am I going to drink this?" Sam questioned. "Maybe if I put the cover over my head to keep it in place, and then you hand me the glass, then I'll be able to drink it." She put the cover over her head and held out her hand to receive the drink.

"Blondes," muttered Morro as he handed the glass to her. The glass disappeared under the bedcover. Five seconds later, it reappeared, empty. He took back the glass and studied Sam to see what she would do next.

Sam lay back on her pillow. "That was very nice of you, Mr. Morro."

Suddenly they heard shouting and pounding from the room next door.

"Let me out, you big oaf!" Nya yelled from inside her room.

Archer could then be heard to say from outside her room, "Nope! You have to stay in there for one more hour!"

"Whoa, things are really swirling around here," Sam gasped, putting a hand to her head.

Then she giggled. "Nya's right. Archer is an oaf!"

Her expression suddenly turned serious. "And he's scary. Last night he said he was going to kill Kai."

Morro raised his eyebrows. "I'm going to have to talk to him about that," he replied.

"By the way, Mr. Morro, has anyone ever told you that you're quite the dashing figure?"

Morro stifled a chuckle. Sam was indeed starting to behave strangely. "I've been told that on one or two occasions."

She pointed a finger at him. "Any girl would be lucky to catch you."

"Would you want to catch me?" he asked.

"Very much so." She tried to get up but fell backward on her pillow.

"Wanna get married today?" he said with a grin.

"Suuurrrre," she smiled.

Morro turned to Bansha. "Show her the dress." Bansha unwrapped the brown paper package to reveal a beautiful white beaded gown.

"Oooh, it's pretty," Sam exclaimed. "For me?"

"Just for you!" Morro answered.

"Verrrry nice!" Sam said, and started humming.

Morro was satisfied that the potion was taking effect on Sam. He turned to Bansha and said, "Put the dress on her and have her ready at 10:45. I'll be by to get her and bring her to the church."


	9. Sunday at 10:00 am

Chapter 9 - Sunday at 10:00 am

At ten o'clock, the church bell rang outside, summoning all to worship.

Inside the church, the organ played the prelude to the service.

Mr. Wu and the Garmadon Ranch boys, dressed in their Sunday best, filed in. The ranch hands, over breakfast, had told their boss what they had learned overnight. Mr. Wu wasn't too happy to hear that his hired men were running around town in the middle of the night, but he was more upset at the shenanigans of his rival. So even though they ordinarily left their guns at the ranch on Sunday mornings, today they all secretly carried their firearms in their inner coat pockets. Mr. Wu went to his customary front-pew seat on the church's left hand side. The young men took their usual seats in the farthest back pew, also on the left.

The arrival of the ranchers was noted by Morro, who had twisted around in his front-pew seat on the church's right hand side to view the people coming inside. Glares were exchanged across the church between the saloon owner and the Garmadon Ranch men.

Nya usually sat next to Jay, but today Jay knew she wouldn't be here, since she was going to be working at the saloon, getting ready for the luncheon reception. But in light of her boss' edict to stay away from the Garmadon Ranch boys, Nya may have been too afraid to sit next to Jay anyway. Jay was going to miss the company of his lovely seatmate.

When the organ music stopped, Pastor Neuro stepped up to the pulpit to say a few words of welcome to the congregation. Then, as usual, he made announcements of general interest to the church members.

"...I would also like to announce that the Ladies' Fundraising Group is holding a bake sale right after the service next Sunday. All ladies of the church are invited to bring their most delicious baked goods to be sold for the purpose of raising funds for the Sunday School."

"Remind me to bring some of my poker winnings from last night to church next week," Cole whispered to Kai, anticipating the purchase of several cakes.

"Our last announcement for today is a happy one. Shortly after this service ends, I will be pleased to officiate at the wedding of our most generous donor, Mr. Morro, to a lovely young new resident of our town, Miss Samantha Borg. All church members are invited to stay for the wedding and then adjourn to Mr. Morro's saloon for a reception featuring light refreshments."

Polite clapping erupted among the congregation and was acknowledged by Morro, who twisted around in his seat to give a small wave to them.

The Garmadon Ranch cowboys and their boss kept their arms folded.

"Now let us take our hymnals and sing page 136," Pastor Neuro instructed as the service continued.

Due to his lack of sleep last night, Kai had a tough time staying awake during the service, particularly during Pastor Neuro's sermon. He sat between Zane and Cole, and they took turns nudging him in the ribs whenever his chin fell on his chest.

Finally Pastor Neuro announced the page number for the final hymn of the service. The organ began playing and the ranch hands watched as Morro stood up. They knew he was getting up to collect his bride. As he walked toward the exit of the church, he sneered at Kai as he passed by. Kai narrowed his eyes in response.

Once the members of the congregation finished singing the final hymn, most of them remained in their seats in anticipation of the ceremony that was to follow. Kai took this opportunity to switch seats with Cole so that Kai would now be sitting on the end seat closest to the aisle.

In the meantime, Nya arrived at the church and sneaked into the seat next to Jay. She was upset.

"Oh, Jay, I'm so sorry about last night. Mr. Morro said I wasn't allowed to talk with you or the other Garmadon Ranch boys," she whispered.

"Don't worry, Nya," Jay whispered back, taking hold of her hand. "I know it wasn't a personal thing. Kai talked to Doc Julien and we know why he said that."

"And I feel terrible for Sam. I tried to talk to her to warn her about Morro's plan this morning, but Archer wouldn't let me leave my room until it was too late."

"It's all right, my little cherry blossom. Kai was able to tell her ahead of time about what was going on."

"Thank goodness!" Nya breathed a sigh of relief. She rested her head on her favorite cowboy's shoulder.

The wait for the ceremony was short. Just a few minutes later, the organ resounded with the beautiful tones of a piece of classical music.

The first set of people to walk down the aisle were Archer and Bansha. Archer's hair was slicked back. He seemed to be performing the duties of best man and ring bearer, since he carried a pillow on which the wedding rings were resting. Bansha apparently was serving as the maid of honor. She wore her usual ragged shawl but she carried a small bouquet of white daisies.

Then, as was the custom, the congregation rose to their feet as the bride and groom entered the room.

Sam was beautifully resplendent in a shimmery white beaded gown. A crown of white daisies adorned her golden blonde tresses. She carried a small bouquet of white daisies in her hand. Kai's jaw dropped as he beheld the blue-eyed beauty who stood only an arm's length away from him just inside the church doors. Morro was standing on her other side, holding onto her waist, waiting for the appropriate point in the music to begin walking down the aisle and toward the altar.

Upon seeing Morro, Nya hid herself behind Jay's shoulder. He held his hat at just the right angle to help camouflage her.

Kai could see Sam's eyes searching the congregation as she stood there, swaying to the left and right. Hoping she was looking for him, he reached out and touched her elbow. Relief registered in her eyes when she saw him standing right there, and she winked at him in response.

That's when he knew she had avoided ingesting the potion. His heart leaped.

So when she and Morro proceeded down the aisle, and he saw her stumble and sway on the way to the altar, he knew it was an act.

Now they had to surprise Morro and stop the wedding ceremony before the "I-do" part.


	10. Sunday at 11:00 am

Chapter 10 - Sunday at 11:00 am

The music finished playing when Morro and Sam reached the altar. Sam's lurching and tripping was causing a ripple of murmuring throughout the congregation, so much that Morro had to address it.

"Don't worry, folks. The bride got really nervous this morning and took a bit too much, uh, medication for her nerves. But she'll be fine. I'm sure all you married folk sitting here were nervous at your ceremony, too."

Chuckles could be heard throughout the pews. Kai rolled his eyes at the way Morro was schmoozing with the crowd.

Pastor Neuro spoke next. "Dearly beloved, let us come together today with heartfelt joy to witness the joining of Mr. Morro and Miss Borg in matrimony."

He continued. "Love has gathered us here together to witness the vows."

With those words, Kai suddenly felt like a ton of coal had just been dumped on him. Perhaps the pastor's sentence was intended to have a slightly different meaning, but Kai realized that love had indeed brought him here today. Love for a kind, beautiful young woman.

Pastor Neuro continued on with the ceremony. There would be a few more minutes before the part where vows were said. Kai pondered his thoughts as he stared at the beautiful girl in the white dress.

Pastor Neuro finally reached the part where vows were said.

"Do you, P.K. Morro, take Samantha Borg to be your wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do you part?"

"I do," Morro said with a firm voice, looking at Sam. Kai didn't like the look in his eyes. It wasn't a look of love, or lust, for that matter.

It was a look of someone who desired to totally possess another.

Kai slowly reached for his gun in the inner pocket of his coat.

"Do you, Samantha, take P.K. Morro to be your wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do you part?"

Suddenly, Sheriff Lloyd burst through the church door with his gun drawn, followed by Deputy Dareth, who also was armed. Doc Julien walked in behind them.

"Morro, you're under arrest for illegal purchase of a potion." Lloyd shouted. "Doc Julien confessed to selling it to you. Come with me quietly, and no one will get hurt."

"Sorry, but no!" Morro suddenly reached for Sam and pressed her back against him, pinning her arms, as he drew his gun and held it to her head. Gasps and screams were heard around the room.

Kai stood up with the intent to draw his gun, but sleep deprivation slowed his reflexes. Archer was the faster draw and aimed his weapon at Kai.

Kai shouted, "Morro, whenever you want female companionship, you usually just buy it. Why do you need to marry Sam?"

"She's not just companionship, you saphead! She's worth a million dollars!"

As murmurs rumbled through the crowd, Kai looked at Sam.

Her blue eyes told him it was true.

"I had a background check done on her. Her daddy was Cyrus Borg, the late president of the Borg Train Supply Company. He made a fortune selling equipment to railroad companies."

"And I intend to get my hands on that money!"


	11. Kidnapped!

Chapter 11 - Kidnapped!

"Well, you might as well shoot me dead, Morro, 'cause you're never going to see a penny of Daddy's money!" Sam hissed. "I will never say 'I do' to you!"

Morro realized that Sam had been faking her behavior of being under the influence of the potion. He was not pleased at being deceived.

But suddenly a sly grin spread across his face.

"Well, Sam, you say you're willing to die because you refuse to say 'I do'. Are you willing for your cowboy to die because you refuse to say 'I do'?"

Sam gasped and looked at Kai, terrified for his safety.

Morro was impatient. "I'll give you five seconds to decide. Archer, aim your gun at the heart of that hothead cowboy."

"Gladly," sneered Archer.

"Don't marry him, Sam!" Kai called out. "I'll take the bullet!"

"Morro, don't you touch my ranch hand!" Mr. Wu shouted.

Sam bowed her head and closed her eyes. "I'll make a deal with you, Morro. I'll give my money to you directly, no marriage involved, if you leave Kai and me alone!"

Morro thought for a second. "I'll agree to that. But since Ninjago Town is no longer a friendly place for me to be, you'll have to come with me so we can conduct our business deal."

"And to insure your cooperation, your cowboy will have to come along, too. Bansha, go bring him down here."

Bansha grinned a toothless grin and reached into her shawl and pulled out a revolver.

As she walked up the aisle, Morro said, "For those of you who need reminding, Bansha is legendary for her marksmanship, even saving Ninjago Town from the snake invasion forty years ago by gunning them down five at a time with one shot. Demonstrate your skills, Bansha."

Bansha cackled. She stopped halfway up the aisle, and then, in the blink of an eye, aimed for Sheriff Lloyd's hat and shot it clean off.

Then the grin on her face disappeared as she turned to Kai and said, "Drop yer sidearm, sonny, then put yer hands up and come with me."

Kai slowly bent down to place his gun on the ground and slowly stood up, raising his arms. As he walked down the aisle, he gave his fellow Garmadon Ranch boys a glance that said _I guess we got us a passel of trouble._

Bansha kept a steely gaze and an aimed gun on Kai as he walked sideways past her, hands up. Once past her, he walked slowly backward down the rest of the aisle, facing her, stopping when he reached Sam's side, still keeping his hands in the air.

"All right. Archer, go out back and put the cowboy on Bansha's horse. Bansha, put our heiress on my horse," Morro instructed. His employees exited the back door of the church with their captives as their boss instructed.

Morro then addressed the general crowd, waving his gun. "If anyone tries to follow us, they'll soon find two dead young people on the trail!"

"If you hurt my ranch hand, you'll pay, Morro!" Mr. Wu shook his fist.

"Give yourself up before you rack up even more offenses!" Sheriff Lloyd urged.

"No, I don't think I will," Morro said. "Sorry!"

Glancing out the door, Morro could see that his group was just about ready. Archer was finishing tying Kai's wrists together.

"And I have something to say to you, Julien. When I'm done conducting my business with Sam, I'll come back to finish some business with you!"

Doc Julien's face turned white.

And with that statement, Morro disappeared out the back door, but not before firing his gun into the air, causing yells and screams to erupt among the people.


	12. Sunday Afternoon

Chapter 12 - Sunday Afternoon

Sheriff Lloyd was angry. His attempt at an arrest had just failed, and two people were kidnapped under his nose, all in front of a roomful of people. On top of it all, he now had a bullet hole in his favorite hat.

But he knew there was no time to dwell on what had just gone wrong. There were two innocent people to save.

He picked up Kai's abandoned gun off the ground and put it in his pocket. Then he called for order among the congregation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please stay seated until the deputy and I can verify that it's safe for you to leave."

He motioned for Deputy Dareth to come outside with him. Doc Julien and the Garmadon Ranch men came along as well. Before Jay went outside, he assured a sobbing Nya that he'd be right back.

They split up in two groups, each group making its way cautiously along each side of the building until they reached the back. From there they all could see the three escaping horses galloping toward the distant ridge.

"If I'm not mistaken, it looks like they're heading toward Skeleton Territory," Sheriff Lloyd surmised, "which means they're heading out of my jurisdiction, and based on past history, the Skeletons won't be cooperative in giving them back to me. Let's take ten minutes to gather supplies and catch them before they cross the line."

Sheriff Lloyd went back inside and informed the crowd that it was safe to leave but that the saloon would be closed until further notice.

Then he and his posse mounted their horses and rode over to the saloon, with Nya riding Kai's horse. Sheriff Lloyd informed Rufus the bartender and the saloon girls about what had just happened, and although they could continue to live on the premises, the saloon was closed for business until further notice. Nya and the other girls quickly worked on packing food for the posse from the doomed wedding reception. Nya made sure to pack a few extra pieces of wedding cake for Cole.

The posse loaded their packages of food and canteens of water onto their horses. Sheriff Lloyd noted that Doc Julien was still among the group and planning to go with them.

"You up for this, Doc?" he asked.

"I am," the doctor replied. "I allowed this mess to grow into a disaster, but I'm working on fixing it, for Kai's sake. He has a can-do attitude that inspired me last night when we talked. And, also, I can tell he's head over heels for this girl."

Lloyd smiled. "Then you should have this." He handed Kai's gun to the physician.

The men mounted their horses, Jay being the last one after giving one last goodbye kiss to Nya.

"All right, men. Let's head out. Remember, don't let them see us."

* * *

Sam wasn't sure, but she guessed they had been riding for three hours, based on the sun's position in the sky. She didn't exactly know where they were going, but she definitely knew her throat was parched. She was riding sidesaddle, seated in front of Morro, with her left arm holding on to his waist and her right arm holding on to the saddle. It disgusted her that his arms were encircling her as he held the horse's reins.

At least she hadn't had to look at Kai for a while. She was facing away from Bansha's horse. She felt extremely guilty about getting him mixed up in a situation that he had nothing to do with. If only she had only stayed back east and not acted on her stupid, stupid idea of coming out here to the west to seek adventure - and love. She never expected to find both so soon, and in this manner.

* * *

The sun was about to dip behind the dark clouds on the western horizon, and Kai had been hoping they would stop for the day, but Morro had told Archer that they needed to keep riding, by lantern light if necessary, so that they would arrive at their destination around midnight. Kai was desperate to stretch his arms. He had been riding with his wrists tied around Bansha's waist so that he wouldn't fall off the horse.

They were heading to some place within Skeleton Territory, which Kai knew meant that Morro was attempting to evade Sheriff Lloyd's justice. Kai knew that Lloyd and his posse were somewhere back there following them, so he hoped they could catch up soon.

Kai looked over at Morro and Sam. The wreath of daisies around Sam's head was askew and about to fall off from her golden tresses. Not being able to see her face, Kai guessed she was sleeping because her head was leaning against Morro's chest. He knew she wouldn't voluntarily get that close to that scoundrel after what he had done and what he intended to do.

But Kai wondered if she'd ever want to get that close to him. Being an heiress, she had no doubt attended high-falutin' dinner parties and society dances and was used to life's finer things. But he was a simple rancher and always would be, and that probably wasn't going to be good enough for her. He consoled himself by reminding himself that at least he could always have the memory of her kiss on his cheek last night.


	13. Monday at 1:00 am

Chapter 13 - Monday at 1:00 am

In addition to dealing with damp clothing, Kai had to deal with disappointment. He had expected the posse to have caught up with them by now, but two events had occurred. After they had crossed Central Bridge, a plank bridge over the Ninjago River which was held up by rope, Archer had used his ax to cut the rope and destroy the bridge. In addition, a sudden thunderstorm which had appeared after sunset had been so torrential that it filled gullies with rapidly flowing water and made it impossible for horses to safely cross. Kai was sure these events effectively stopped the posse's pursuit of them and allowed them to enter Skeleton Territory.

Now it was after midnight, and they had arrived in the Skeleton Territory town of Noscut. They were sheltering from the still-raging thunderstorm in the headquarters of the town sheriff, who Morro apparently knew. Kai suspected that Morro had done a previous favor for this sheriff and was now requesting a favor in return. While Morro talked with the sheriff, and Bansha and Archer went off to who knows where, Kai and Sam were seated in some wooden chairs. Kai's wrists were still tied.

Kai looked around at the surroundings. This sheriff's headquarters weren't as nicely kept as Sheriff Lloyd's. Rain dripped from the ceiling in certain places. A questionable aroma permeated the air. And Kai did not want to alarm Sam, but he spotted a rat running along a wall.

"I hope they can give us some dry clothes or at least a blanket," he said to Sam, glad for this first real chance in nearly 24 hours to converse with her.

"I hope so, too," she responded, crossing her arms as she shivered in the damp bridal gown. "And some food would be nice."

Morro and the sheriff finished their conversation and walked over to the couple.

"We're spending the rest of the night here, as a favor to me. Sheriff Kruncha is going to take you to where you're going to sleep tonight. In the morning we'll finalize our business deal," he said, grinning as he walked away.

The sheriff lit up two lanterns, giving one to Sam and taking one for himself. He motioned for Kai and Sam to follow him. They stood up and walked behind him to the back of the building, which seemed somewhat isolated from the rest of the facility. Here, a jail cell was located. The sheriff unlocked the door, opened it, and said, "In you go."

Sam's jaw dropped, not believing that this cold, inhospitable stone-walled cell was to be the sleeping quarters. On the lone piece of furniture - a twin size bed - a single tattered blanket served as a bed linen.

Sam apparently was not moving fast enough into the cell to satisfy Kruncha, because he pushed her in.

He pushed in Kai right after her, slamming the door, and turned to leave.

"Hey, wait, can I at least get these ropes untied, now that I'm locked in?" Kai asked, holding up his wrists.

"Stick 'em through the door," Kruncha ordered as he whipped out a knife.

Kruncha took hold of Kai's hands and made quick slashes to remove the ropes before Kai got any ideas about grabbing the knife.

"Thanks. Got any grub?" Kai asked as Kruncha turned to leave again.

Kruncha rolled his eyes. "I'll see what we got," he said and left.

Kai rubbed his wrists. "That's much better," he said and turned to look at Sam.

Sam was staring wide-eyed at something on the floor, and it was moving.

"Oh, uh, yeah, that's a rat," Kai explained delicately, wondering if there was going to be a further reaction from her. "Do you, uh, want to maybe get on the bed?"

Sam bit her lower lip and nodded. Still staring at the rat, she set down her lantern and slowly sidled up to the bed, climbing on it in a kneeling position.

Kruncha returned with a tray containing two tin cups of water and half a loaf of bread. "That's all until breakfast," he said as he slid it under the door. Then he left again. Kai suspected they weren't going to see him or anyone else until the morning.

Kai picked up the tray and brought it over to the bed. He set it down next to Sam and sat on the other side of the tray after moving the blanket aside.

She looked at the loaf. Mold appeared to be growing on it.

She looked into the tin cups. Things were floating on the water's surface in both cups.

Tears welled up in her eyes and her throat tightened. She tried to be brave and strong, but dirty drinking water was just one difficulty too many to endure, after facing so many of them in the past 24 hours.

Kai noticed the pinched look on her face. "You all right, Sam?"

Sam began to sob. "I am c-cold and wet and h-hungry and t-tired and I'm about to lose m-my Daddy's money and I m-miss him so m-much right now!"

"Th-the only g-g-good thing is that y-y-you're here with me!"

She turned away from him to wipe her eyes.

Kai reached out to gently cup her chin and turn her face toward him again. With his thumb he wiped a tear from her cheek.

The moment felt right to him. He leaned over the tray to bring his face close to hers. His lips tenderly touched hers for a brief moment before he pulled away to determine her reaction.

Her blue eyes shone in the lantern light. She placed her hand on the back of his neck and drew him close again. Her lips lingered on his to let him know she wanted more of his comfort.

Passion began to ignite within him as he inhaled her sweet strawberry scent.

He momentarily sat up and, with one sweep of his forearm, brushed the tin cups and tray onto the floor, where they landed with a clatter.

Their eyes locking in a steady gaze, he encircled his arm behind her shoulders and used his upper body to gently guide her backward to rest on the bed, his face remaining mere inches from hers. She wrapped her arms around him, giving him permission to explore her lips as much as he wanted.

Soon the squalor of their surroundings was forgotten in the sweet exchange of affection.


	14. Monday at Dawn

Chapter 14 - Monday at Dawn

Kai opened his eyes. Daylight shone into the jail cell from a small window above.

He found himself laying on his side on the jail cell's twin size bed. One arm was folded under his head, like a pillow.

The other arm was resting on the waist of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty. She was lying on her back, peacefully sleeping, her head resting against his chest.

Propping himself up on his elbow to gaze at her, he smiled at the memory of exchanging sweet kisses with her just a few hours earlier. How he had so desperately wanted to explore more of her charms, especially when she softly whispered his name. If only her title was Mrs. Kai Smith.

He told himself he would work on turning that wish into reality when they got back to Ninjago Town.

"Hey!" a voice interrupted his thoughts. It was Archer, carrying a tray of food. Their breakfast.

"You spent the night with a woman and you didn't have fun with her? What kind of a man are you?"

At the sound of Archer's loud voice, Sam's eyelids started to flutter open. She lifted her head groggily.

"Well, now, ain't you a purty one first thing in the morning. Wouldn't mind waking up with you next to me," Archer chuckled.

Kai stood up quickly and stomped over to the door of the jail cell, his fists clenched. He could barely tolerate the personal insult he just received, but he would not tolerate vulgar talk aimed at Sam. "Stop talking dirty to the lady, or else I'm gonna clean your plow!"

"Is that a threat?" Archer questioned. "In case you forgot, cowboy, I got one of these" - he pulled out his gun and pointed it at Kai - "and you don't."

Archer set the tray on the ground and kicked it under the door with his boot. "Here's yer breakfast." He put his gun away and left.

Kai took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He bent down to retrieve the food tray and turned to Sam.

By this time she was sitting up on the bed, though her feet were tucked under her to avoid contact with rats on the floor. Kai set the food tray on the bed, then seated himself next to it.

"Good morning, Sam," he smiled at her with his charming lopsided grin. As he focused on her, the memory of his encounter with Archer just a minute ago was quickly fading.

Sam recalled what she and Kai were doing a few hours ago. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks blushed as she warmly smiled back at him and said, "Good morning, Kai."

"You look pretty this morning," he told her, and he meant it.

"Oh, thank you, but I must look a fright," she said as she looked down, her cheeks blushing a deeper pink. Her hair, which had been neatly pinned up yesterday morning, was halfway falling down after the long ride and the thunderstorm. Without a mirror available to fix it back up, she decided to just let her hair fall. She began to remove the hairpins from her tresses.

While she did that, Kai surveyed their breakfast. "The bacon and eggs must still be fairly warm 'cause the plates are still warm. Same with the coffee in the pot. Want me to pour you some?"

"Yes, please," she smiled, removing the last hairpin and using her fingers to loosely comb her hair in an attempt to neaten it. She didn't quite know what to do with the pile of hairpins next to her but she felt like she didn't want to lose them. Because she had been taken from Ninjago Town without any of her beauty accessories or grooming tools, she felt like the hairpins were one of her last reminders of the civilized society that she and Kai lived in before being thrown into this foul cell.

Kai handed her a tin cup half filled with coffee. "Better hold it from the top so it's not so hot on your fingers," he suggested as he silently admired her unpinned golden tresses. He had seen her wear her hair this way before, but that was in the middle of the night during the whole thing at the saloon outhouse, not in the daylight like now.

"Thank you," she replied, taking the cup from him. The sip of coffee she then drank was indeed still warm. If the food was still at a decent temperature, then maybe this would actually be an adequate meal.

"So, Sam, tell me a little bit about your life in the east," Kai said, taking a bite of eggs. "Like about your family and growing up and such."

"Well, everybody now knows, thanks to Morro, that my daddy made lots of money running a successful company. What folks don't realize is that he worked very hard to build the company, and in the meantime while he was doing that, he was trying to raise me by himself. My mama died when I was a baby."

Kai gave her a sympathetic look.

Sam took a bite of her eggs and continued. "Daddy spent as much time with me as he could, but I still spent a lot of time with nannies and later went to a private boarding school. Not having any siblings, I got a little lonely sometimes but Daddy did what he could and I appreciated it. My life was comfortable."

"So what made you come out to Ninjago Town then?" Kai inquired before taking a bite of bacon.

"I discovered that when you have money, you can't be sure if people like you for you or for your money. Like for example, there was this young man who was courting me, and Daddy had suspicions about him. Turns out his father declared bankruptcy just a few weeks after I turned down the son's marriage proposal."

Sam ate the last forkful of her eggs and set the plate aside. "Then when Daddy died and I sold his company and settled his affairs, I felt like that was the time to go somewhere where people didn't know my background and would just know me for me. So I decided to take a train out to Sasnak City, and the only person I told my plans to was my lawyer. In Sasnak City I read some help wanted advertisements in the newspaper and saw Morro was looking for a saloon girl. So I figured Ninjago Town would be a place in which I could make a life for myself."

She looked down and added, "And maybe find true love."

Then she looked up again, directly into his soft brown eyes. "And I did."

Kai swallowed, but it wasn't because he had food in his mouth. He set his plate on the bed and stood up. Then dropping on one knee on the stone ground in front of her, he took her hand.

"Samantha, I know I don't have a engagement ring to give you right now, but..." he began.

Sam gasped and placed her free hand over Kai's mouth. Tears welled up as she said, "Kai, don't do this now."

A cloud of disappointment started to form in his eyes, so she quickly explained.

"I don't want to have to tell our children that you proposed marriage to me in a dirty jail cell."

It took him a second to process what she was saying. Our children. Our.

With a loud shout of "Yee haw!", he leaped up from the ground with a huge grin. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her in the air and twirled her around as she squealed.

"Put me down, cowboy," she laughed.

He set her on the ground but kept his hands on her waist. "All right. I'll wait."

She threw her arms around his neck. "But I hope the right time will come soon."

"I hope so, too," he smiled as he leaned in to touch his lips to hers.

As they kissed, they heard a voice say, "I see we're interrupting something."


	15. Monday after Breakfast

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Thanks to all the readers of my very first fan fic!**

 **Hope you've been enjoying the tale of my favorite ninja cowboy and his lady! We are now just past the halfway point of my story, in terms of number of chapters (I have already written it to its completion).**

 **But if inspiration strikes me, or if you post an idea that is as fine as cream gravy ("very good", in cowboy talk), I may do some rewriting, and therefore the number of chapters may change.**

 **A special howdy goes to Kai's Girlfriend, kairocksrainbow, and MMM for posting comments!**

* * *

Chapter 15 - Monday after Breakfast

Still holding on to each other, Kai and Sam looked over to see Morro, Sheriff Kruncha, and Bansha standing at the jail cell door.

"Good morning, lovebirds," Morro smirked. "We're going to take a walk over to the telegraph office. But first we brought a little something for each of you to wear."

Morro drew his gun and aimed it at Sam while Sheriff Kruncha opened the door. "The cowboy gets to wear handcuffs. Don't try any funny business while the sheriff puts them on you, hothead, 'cause I got Ol' Ghostmaker here pointed at our heiress," Morro sneered, using the nickname for his gun.

Kai rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to try anything," he said wearily, holding his arms in front of him. The sheriff quickly clamped the handcuffs on him, then stepped behind him and pushed him out the cell door. Morro put back his gun.

"And for the lady, Bansha has a different dress for you to wear. That bridal gown looks good on you, but it's not quite suitable for walking through town on a Monday morning. Bansha, holler out when she's finished dressing."

Bansha walked in the cell with a plain looking dress draped over her arm, and the sheriff closed the door behind her.

"Let's go wait in the front office," Morro told Kai as he gave him a push forward. The three men left.

"Turn around, Missy," the old woman instructed the younger one, "so I can git at the buttons."

Sam did as Bansha said, pulling her hair to the side so Bansha could have easier access to the long row of pearl buttons running down her back.

"Hoo-ee! I'd sure like to lasso up that young feller!" Bansha commented as she worked on undoing the bridal dress.

Sam didn't like the old woman much, but she couldn't help letting out a chuckle at her statement.

"Me, too," Sam agreed.

"Well, he's taken a shine to ya, so it wouldn't be much trouble to rope him up to the altar. Reminds me of the young buck I had years ago."

Sam had wondered about Bansha's past. "Tell me about him."

"He had brown hair and eyes, just like yer cowboy. When I first saw him, he was lookin' mighty fine in his soldier uniform, and my heart pounded like the hooves of cattle runnin' from a wildfire. He felt the same 'bout me, and we got hitched in the blink of an eye. Moved out west and bought some land not far from Ninjago Town," Bansha explained as she helped Sam out of the bridal dress.

"That sounds nice," Sam commented.

"It was. Had us a little farm. Even had us a few little shavers."

"Aww. Boys or girls or both?" Sam asked as she stepped into the new dress.

"Two strappin' boys and a purty little girl with hair the color of yours. Those young 'uns were the apple of my eye."

A dark cloud suddenly appeared in Bansha's eyes.

"Until the snakes invaded."

Sam was a little afraid to ask, but she did. "What happened?"

Bansha answered as Sam began to button up the front-buttoned dress. "Isaiah and I went to town that day to get supplies. Left the children at home 'cause they were old enough. Got ready to head back to the farm, saw black smoke on the horizon in that direction. Hurried down the road, then we saw 'em. Dozens of those evil slithery varmints headed toward town."

"I shot a few. Isaiah shot a few, but they grabbed him."

Upon hearing the horrible turn that Bansha's story had taken, Sam froze.

Then Bansha asked, "You want me to pin up yer hair?"

It seemed a little odd for Bansha to make such an offer in general, let alone at that scary part in her story, but Sam accepted the offer. "Yes, please," she said as she completed the buttoning, sat down on the bed, and collected the pile of hairpins in her hand. She held them out so Bansha could take a pin as needed.

"The last words Isaiah said to me before they dragged him away were, 'Be a survivor so I can survive in your heart!'"

Sam's throat tightened, envisioning the emotional scene.

"Knowin' there was nothin' I could do for him at that point, I escaped back to town on my horse to warn the folks and helped 'em beat back the snakes with my gun."

"As soon as possible I went out to the farm with some of the townsfolk, including Morro, who was a young greenhorn businessman then. When we got there, found that my house, my crops, my livestock were totally destroyed."

"My children were gone. Never found 'em."

Sam felt like crying, but Bansha continued on in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Didn't know how I was gonna make a livin' after that, but a few weeks later Morro offered me a job workin' for him and I been his employee ever since."

Bansha took the last hairpin and put it in Sam's hair. "I don't have a mirror for ya to see yerself in, but ya look decent."

"Now don't get any ideas that you and me are gonna be best pals now, Missy, just 'cause I told ya my story," Bansha cautioned Sam.

"'Cause we're not gonna be."

Before Sam could say a word, Bansha hollered "Morro!"


	16. Monday at Midday (Kai and Bansha)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Can anyone guess how I derived the town names of**

 **Noscut,**

 **Qubla (see below),**

 **and Sasnak City (from Chapter 14)?**

 **I'll explain at the beginning of the next chapter.**

* * *

Chapter 16 - Monday at Midday (Kai and Bansha)

After a long morning, the young couple and their captors were seated in the Noscut Saloon to await being served a midday meal. Sam had a headache and hoped that a hot meal would help to relieve the discomfort.

The morning had started out with the walk to the telegraph office. Morro had walked next to Sam, firmly grasping her upper arm and warning her not to try anything funny, like ask the telegraph operator to send a message of distress. Bansha walked on the other side of Sam. Behind them, Kai was being escorted by Archer, who was wearing a deputy badge borrowed from Sheriff Kruncha. Sam could guess that the purpose for the badge was to make passersby think that Kai was wearing handcuffs because he was a captured criminal.

Sam couldn't see much of Kai during the walk, but before they had left the jail, she observed that his eyes shone with an extra sparkle of delight when she and Bansha had rejoined the men. Sam figured it was because he liked what Bansha had done with her hair, since the gray dress she was wearing was kind of drab and not particularly noteworthy. She had smiled at him, but since then, she hadn't had a reason to smile.

At the telegraph office, while Kai, Archer, and Bansha sat in chairs in a waiting area, Sam and Morro had stood at the telegraph operator's counter. They were going to send a telegram, in Sam's name, to her lawyer. Sam provided the name and address of her lawyer. Morro provided a message requesting the lawyer to liquidate all her bank accounts and bring the money to the nearest branch office of a big wire transfer company. That office was then supposed to send a message to the local branch office in Qubla, the capital city in Skeleton Territory. The message for the Qubla office was that it was supposed to deliver the specified amount of money to Morro's bank.

Trying to wrap her mind around the process made Sam's head hurt. She just wanted this nightmare to be over so that she and Kai could go back to Ninjago Town to start their new life together. She hoped her daddy in Heaven would forgive her for getting in trouble and letting the fruits of his life's work fall into the hands of this unscrupulous rascal.

Once the telegram was sent to the lawyer, they waited an hour for a responding telegram, confirming that he would do what she asked of him in the telegram. However, in his responding telegram, the lawyer wanted to know why she was telling him to do this.

Morro was not pleased with the delay and had a telegram sent back, saying she was getting married and the money was going into the groom's account.

They had to wait another hour for a response saying that the lawyer would finally do what she asked.

At that point, Morro decided it was time to eat the midday meal, after which they would return to the telegraph office to await yet another telegram from the lawyer saying that he actually did do what was requested of him.

Morro chose the Noscut Saloon as the place to dine.

Archer opted to sit at the bar and drink a liquid meal. Morro wished to sit at a table with only Sam as a dining companion. That left Bansha and Kai to eat together a few tables down.

Kai would have preferred the company of the younger female in their group, but however odd Bansha seemed, she was still a lady, so Kai would try to make the best of it.

It was awkward, though. As they waited for their food to be served, he'd bring up topics such as the weather, the saloon décor, and the recent goings-on in Ninjago Town, and she'd give terse, one-sentence replies that were not conducive to conversation. Finally, to his relief, the saloon girl brought their food. Kai had a steak. Bansha had a bowl of soup.

The awkwardness didn't end, though, for Kai still had his handcuffs on, and trying to cut the meat with shackled wrists was nigh on impossible.

Bansha noticed his difficulty as she loudly slurped a spoonful of soup. She grinned a toothless grin.

"Havin' a little trouble there, sonny?"

"Yep. About what you'd expect a handcuffed person to have when trying to use a knife and fork."

"Here, let me," she gleefully offered. Kai accepted her help, having no other choice, so she took the knife and fork and, with gnarled hands, deftly cut the meat into manageable pieces.

Kai rolled his eyes at her delight in his predicament. Thanking her when she gave the utensils back, he set out to carefully use them to try to move the food to his mouth in a graceful manner. Both hands had to be raised in order to take a bite.

After he had just taken his fourth bite, Bansha unexpectedly asked him a question. Whether it was the unexpectedness of her conversation or the content of the question, it almost made him spit out the steak.

"What are your intentions toward Missy over there?"

As Kai recovered from the surprise of the question and swallowed his bite of food, he wondered why Bansha was interested.

"Sam is a real fine gal and I intend to make her my wife when we get back to Ninjago Town."

"And where ya gonna live once ya get hitched?" Bansha inquired.

Kai recalled his conversation with Mr. Wu just a few weeks back, in which Kai revealed his intention to propose to Skylor. Mr. Wu had said that if Skylor's answer was yes, Mr. Wu would build a small cottage for the couple on the premises of the ranch, as a wedding present. He had said he planned to do the same for any of his ranch hands when they were ready to get married. This news had pleased Jay when he heard about it from Kai.

Thinking of Skylor, Kai felt a bit embarrassed that he even proposed to her. The affection he may have felt for her did not compare to the enormity of love he felt for Sam right now. But Bansha did not need to know that part.

"Mr. Wu will likely build us a cottage on Garmadon Ranch," he answered.

"You like ranchin', sonny?"

 _Bansha is certainly full of questions today_ , Kai thought.

"I do like ranching," he firmly said. There was no job better than one which required being in the fresh air under the wide open sky. He smiled at how fortunate he was to be employed to do such work.

Bansha narrowed her eyes and peppered him with another question. "How many little shavers do ya want?"

A blush crept across Kai's face at the thought of the process of creating children with Sam. Then, putting that thought aside, he searched his heart and realized he'd probably like a number of kids. He himself had only one sibling and had always thought it'd be fun to have more instant playmates. Sam had used the plural word "children" when he had knelt on the ground in front of her that morning.

"Multiple," he responded.

"Good," Bansha sat back and smiled. "I got no more questions for ya, young feller, just one thing to say."

"What's that?"

Bansha took his steak knife and pointed it at him, her smile gone. "Always treat her good, y'hear?" she said. She was serious.

Kai's eyes widened and he held up his shackled hands, palms forward and fingers spread. "I intend to do so, ma'am."

"Fine," she said, resuming the slurping of her soup.

Kai moved the knife out of the odd lady's reach and resumed eating his steak.


	17. Monday at Midday (Sam and Morro)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **The town of Noscut is the reverse spelling of the city of Tucson (in Arizona).**

 **Sasnak City (from Chapter 14) is a reverse of Kansas City (in Missouri).**

 **Qubla is a reverse of the first 5 letters in the city of Albuquerque (in New Mexico).**

* * *

Chapter 17 - Monday at Midday (Sam and Morro)

A few tables away from Kai and Bansha, Sam was not having a pleasant dining experience with Morro.

"So, my dear, I was thinking about using some of my newly acquired additional wealth to buy this saloon and fix it up," Morro taunted her. "What do you think?"

Sam glared at him. "I don't care."

"Or maybe I'll do that after I open a saloon in Qubla. With Qubla being the capital city, there are plenty of folks around who'll need a bite to eat and a drink to wet their whistle." Morro looked out the window and seemed to be talking to himself more than to her. "And if I happen to need to put a competitor out of business, there'll be a politician close by who can be bribed to make it happen."

Morro turned to look back at Sam. "I was going to expand my operations in Skeleton Territory anyway, but now that I'm no longer welcome to do business in Ninjago Town, I need to accelerate my expansion timetable."

"I'm curious about something," Sam said, ignoring his comments as she sipped on the tea she had ordered to relieve the pain in her head. "In the week that I've been in Ninjago Town, I've gathered that there's some bad blood between you and the Garmadon Ranch folks. What is it about?"

"Oh, it goes back a long time, back to the days just after the snake invasion forty years ago. Some hunters from Ninjago Town came upon a village of snakes that we hadn't known about before, about 30 miles up the river, and they came back to town to let the rest of us know."

Just then, the saloon girl brought them their steaks and left.

Morro continued as he cut his meat. "Mr. Garmadon, who eventually became the daddy of Sheriff Lloyd, claimed that from the description of these snakes, they were a peaceful bunch and weren't from the same family of snakes that had tried to attack Ninjago Town. But some of us believed that a snake is a snake, so in retaliation, I led a group to the snake village and we, uh, took care of them, shall we say."

Sam took a sip of tea to hide her horror at Morro's flippant description of his brutality.

"Garmadon was madder than a wet hen and got me arrested. But the charges of massacre against me didn't stick, thanks to a few well greased palms, if you know what I mean."

Sam rolled her eyes.

"Over the years both of us prospered. He chose to make deals that were strictly ethical. I wasn't so picky about the deals I made, or the character of the people I made them with. Garmadon kept dragging me into court again and again to challenge the legality of my various business transactions when he thought they were bad for Ninjago Town."

"One day, about ten years ago, Garmadon's body was found along the Ninjago River. He had a bullet hole in his skull."

"His killer was never found. It was rumored that I had done it because he had become just a little too tiresome to me and that I had to teach him a lesson about sticking his nose where it didn't belong."

"Silly rumors," he grinned diabolically.

At the realization of what Morro was actually admitting, Sam nearly choked on the bite of steak in her mouth, but she recovered without Morro noticing.

"No doubt his son Lloyd is the sheriff today because he's looking for a solid link between me and his daddy's murder. Good luck to him with that," Morro chuckled roguishly.

Sam's heart pounded. Morro was more of a scoundrel than she ever imagined. And right now, being held captive miles and miles from home, she and Kai were at his mercy. She took another sip of tea and pretended she was not scared.

"I have a question for you now, Sam," Morro said, leaning over the table as far as he could, to get close to her face.

"Who told you not to drink the potion I gave you yesterday morning?"

At the unexpected inquiry, Sam's eyes widened as she struggled to come up with a lie in response. There was no way she was going to reveal that it was Kai.

But Morro, watching her face turn red and her mouth open several times without uttering a word, could guess. He laughed.

"I figured it was that hothead cowboy."

Suddenly they heard a commotion a few tables away from them.

"Morro!" Kai shouted. "Bansha collapsed!"


	18. Monday Afternoon

Chapter 18 - Monday Afternoon

Morro and Sam ran over to where Bansha lay on the floor, unconscious. Archer and other saloon patrons gathered around the scene.

"We had talked a little and she finished her soup and all of a sudden she fell off her chair," Kai explained, gesturing with his cuffed hands.

"All right, stand back, everyone, and give her some air," Morro commanded the crowd.

Sam noticed that Bansha's eyelids started to flutter.

The old woman's snippiness with Sam earlier that day in the jail cell was forgotten by the younger woman as she knelt down beside the stricken Bansha and took her hand. "Bansha, can you hear me?"

Bansha looked at her with dull eyes. "I hear ya," she answered weakly.

Sam's mind was instantly transported to a point in time just over a year ago. At that time, the stricken one was her daddy. He had looked as weak as Bansha did now. He never fully recovered.

Morro knelt down on the other side of Bansha.

"You're gonna be all right, Bansha," Morro assured her.

"Oh, Morro, I gotta git back home to Ninjago Town. I don't wanna die anywhere else but there," Bansha said in a groggy voice.

"Who's talking about dying, Bansha? You just need to rest," Morro admonished her.

Morro called out to the crowd, "If there's a doctor in the house, we could use one now!"

The barkeeper came over. "Sorry, pardner, but our town doctor's not here this week. But you can put her in that room over there."

Morro carefully picked up the old woman off the floor, bridal style, and carried her into the room indicated by the barkeeper. It was a room used to tend to injuries of saloon patrons involved in bar fights. Since it was small, only two people at a time, besides the patient, could occupy it comfortably. Morro laid Bansha down on the available cot, then stepped back out where Archer, Sam, and Kai had gathered around the door.

Morro ran his fingers through his hair in an agitated fashion.

"All right, this is what's gonna happen. Cowboy, you're going back to jail for the afternoon. Archer, bring him over there while we wait here for you. Then come back here to watch over Bansha while Sam and I go back to the telegraph office."

Knowing what she now knew about Morro, Sam was a bit alarmed to let Kai out of her sight, but she quickly reasoned that Bansha's condition was currently now Morro's highest priority.

"All right, cowboy, let's go," Archer said to Kai as he drew his gun and jammed it between the shoulder blades of the ranch hand's back, guiding him out the saloon door.

Morro motioned for Sam to enter Bansha's room. Before he himself entered, he called out to the barkeeper to bring a glass of water and a cloth.

A small table and two chairs were also located in the room next to the cot, so Sam sat in one chair. Morro remained standing, waiting for the water to be delivered. The old woman stared at the ceiling, blinking.

The barkeeper brought the cloth, a glass, and a pitcher of water, setting them on the small table before he left. Morro closed the door after him.

"Bansha, how about some water?" Morro asked as he filled the glass.

She indicated she wanted some, so Sam carefully raised her head while Morro lifted the glass to her lips. After a few seconds, Bansha was done, so Sam lowered her head to the cot's pillow, and Morro dabbed her mouth with the cloth before setting it down on the small table.

It seemed very odd to Sam how Morro could be such an awful person yet treat Bansha with such tenderness.

Bansha turned her head to look at Sam.

"Missy?" she said in her groggy voice.

"Yes, Bansha?" Sam leaned close to hear her.

"I'm sorry for this mornin' when I said we couldn't be best pals. I just got all flustered ... "

Bansha coughed.

"... 'cause the way ya looked ... "

She coughed again.

"... with yer hair up reminded me of ... "

Bansha launched into a fit of coughs.

"Stop trying to talk, Bansha!" Sam commanded her as she lifted the old woman into a sitting position, in case the patient coughed up fluids. "Don't worry about this morning. I'm fine." Sam steadied Bansha with one hand on her shoulder while grabbing the cloth with the other and dabbing her mouth as necessary.

For a second, Sam felt as if she were caring for her daddy again.

After a minute, Bansha's coughing subsided, so Sam lowered her to a reclining position again.

She looked up at Morro. He was standing behind the other chair, gripping the back of it so tightly that his knuckles were white.

"Emma," Morro said.

"Pardon?" Sam looked at him quizzically.

"You reminded her of Emma. Her daughter."

A knock at the door interrupted their conversation. Archer had returned from the jail.

After a few words to his hired man, Morro motioned Sam to follow him out the door. Grabbing his hat from the dining table and taking hold of her upper arm, they returned to the telegraph office.

The telegram they were expecting had already arrived by the time they got to the office. Sam's lawyer had liquidated her accounts and now the wheels were in motion to move the money to Morro's bank in Qubla.

"I hope you're happy," Sam said to Morro with narrowed eyes as they exited the office and walked back to the saloon. "Now take Kai and me back to Ninjago Town."

"Not so fast, my dear," Morro scolded her. "Just to make sure everything has gone smoothly, we're going to travel to Qubla tomorrow."

"And where exactly is Qubla located?"

"Qubla is about a twelve-hour ride away," Morro explained, "but to get there we have to travel through the desert, so we'll have to leave before sunup in order to get most of the travel done before the extreme heat of the day."

"Bansha can't possibly go on a desert trip. What's going to happen to her?" Sam questioned. By this time, they had arrived back at the saloon.

"I haven't decided yet what to do about her," Morro replied as he knocked on the closed door of the little room where they had left Bansha and Archer about 45 minutes earlier. Archer opened the door.

Morro walked in. "How's she doing?"

"She's just been sleepin'," Archer answered.

"All right, that's good," Morro said. "I'm going to move her to the local hotel for the night. Archer, can you go round up a stretcher, or something similar, so we can carry her there?"

"Sure, boss," Archer said as he departed. Morro motioned Sam into the room and closed the door.

"I want you to stay with Bansha in her hotel room tonight to look after her," Morro said.

Sam frowned. "Where's Kai going to spend the night?"

"In the pokey, again."

Sam thought. "If you want me to be a nurse to Bansha, then I want Kai to stay in the hotel, too. He can sleep on the floor in the room that Bansha and I are in. She won't mind."

"No can do, my dear, so don't raise your bristles," Morro said, towering over her.

Sam began to panic at the prospect of being separated from Kai and not being able to keep tabs on his whereabouts.

"Then I'm staying in the jail cell, too!" she blurted out.

He grasped her arms and looked into her eyes. "But I need you!"

Sam couldn't be sure, but it seemed his eyes were saying that he needed her for more than just her nursing skills.

She became acutely aware that, aside from the incapacitated Bansha, she and Morro were alone. In a closed room.

A chill of fear went down her spine.

Whatever it was, Morro apparently felt he had revealed something he didn't intend to. For the first time since Sam met him, he acted as if he were embarrassed. Letting go of his grasp on her, he swallowed and broke the awkward silence.

"I'll bring the cowboy over when we get settled in the hotel," he reluctantly agreed before he turned and left the room.


	19. Monday Evening

Chapter 19 - Monday Evening

In a second-floor room of the Noscut Hotel, Sam sat in a chair next to the bed where Bansha lay sleeping. It was about sunset and she had just lit the room lamp, as the natural light was quickly fading.

Morro had stopped by the room a while ago. Just as was the case when he escorted her to the hotel, he had acted like his usual gruff, businesslike self. There was no trace of the awkwardness he displayed in the saloon room.

He had informed Sam that he was going to arrange for the hotel kitchen to deliver evening meals for Bansha, Kai, and herself to the room, and then he was going to the jail to pick up Kai and bring him back.

Of course, he had reminded her not to try any funny business like harming Bansha or attempting an escape. Archer was going to stand guard outside the room door.

Soon there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find a welcome sight. There stood Kai with that adorable lopsided grin, which grew wider upon seeing her. As Archer pointed his gun at Kai for what seemed like the millionth time, Morro used the handcuff key to unshackle him.

As Kai rubbed his wrists, Morro gave him a push into the room while looking beyond him to check on Bansha.

"I ordered soup for Bansha. I suppose you'll have to wake her up when it arrives," he said, closing the door on the captives.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief, now that the scoundrel was gone.

"Howdy," Kai greeted her with twinkling eyes, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her close. "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," she murmured, just before his lips reacquainted themselves with hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and reveled in being enveloped by his warm embrace.

"Thanks for getting me out of the pokey," Kai smiled. "Morro said you were getting your dander up about me spending the night there again."

Sam smiled but didn't say anything. She wasn't ready to spoil their reunion with talk about Morro just yet.

Just then another knock on the door sounded. Supper had arrived.

Sam insisted that Kai eat his meal while it was still warm. She tended to Bansha, waking the elderly woman and propping her head up using both pillows of the double bed. He sat in the room chair, eating and watching while Sam sat on the empty half of the double bed, spooning soup into the frail septuagenarian's mouth. Kai guessed that the practiced manner in which Sam cared for the woman was due to having cared for Mr. Borg in the same way in the last few months of his life.

Bansha eventually fell asleep again, and Sam could relax and eat her own supper. Kai felt bad that her meal was cold, so he felt that the least he could do was to give her the chair to sit in. He moved to sit on the floor with his back against a wall.

"Did you hear Morro's taking us to Qubla tomorrow?" Kai asked Sam as she dined. He kept his voice low so that Bansha would not be disturbed and so that Archer could not hear from outside the door.

"I did. I guess he wants to make sure the money actually arrives in his account."

"Unfortunately, going to Qubla puts us even farther away from Ninjago Town," Kai frowned.

Kai's concern disturbed her. "Well, do you think anyone from Ninjago Town is still looking for us?" she asked.

"Sheriff Lloyd may not have crossed the Territory line, 'cause he has no authority around here. But I know the Garmadon Ranch men have to be out there somewhere. That thunderstorm last night, plus Archer cutting the bridge, no doubt got them in a bad box, otherwise they would've showed up by now. I have to think they've been looking for another way to get to Noscut."

Though Sam had lived in Ninjago Town less than a week, she had already gotten the impression that the Garmadon Ranch folks were good, decent people who looked out for each other. Therefore, she wasn't surprised that Kai said his fellow ranch brothers would still be on the hunt for him.

"You know, I haven't had a chance to ask you about your life on Garmadon Ranch," Sam said. "How did you come to work there?"

"Well, I worked in a blacksmith shop originally, but I wasn't real happy there 'cause obviously it's a job where you work indoors most of the time. Then one day Mr. Wu came in, needing a new shoe for his horse. So my boss and I started working on that, and just then, someone ran in the shop to tell Mr. Wu that his cattle were stampeding. Since his horse had a bad shoe, I offered to take him on my horse. We rode and I helped round up the cattle and he thought I was a natural for ranch work, so he offered me a job, and I've been a Garmadon ranch hand since."

"How many other ranch hands are there?" Sam asked. "I met Jay at the saloon on Saturday, and then later, Zane..."

"That's right, and the black-haired one you saw but haven't yet officially met is named Cole. Sheriff Lloyd probably would be working on the ranch, too, instead of being a lawman, but his daddy - the founder of the ranch - was murdered, and Lloyd intends to one day find the evidence to pin it on Morro."

"Morro told me that today at the saloon. He said good luck with that," Sam recalled.

She put her empty plate down and sighed. "I can't wait until we're through with that man and we can go back to Ninjago Town."

"I can't, either," Kai agreed.

He had been waiting for Sam to put her plate down. Now that she had, he reached up and mischievously took her hand, pulling her out of the chair. She stifled a squeal as she landed on top on him.

He rolled her over so that she was on her back and he was now propped up on his elbow, looking down into her sparkling blue eyes.

"By the way, Bansha did your hair up nice this morning," he said, smiling as he stroked her cheek.

"I guess I never had a chance to look at it today," Sam realized.

"Well, trust me, it's nice. 'Cause with your hair up, I can do this." He lowered his head and began to plant kisses on her neck.

"Ka-a-ai, what are you doing?" she giggled as she looked at the ceiling.

"Nothing," he murmured as his lips explored the soft skin below her ear.

"You're tickling me," she laughed, squirming.

"What? I can't hear you," he teased in between kisses. He held her tight, partially to stop her wriggling, mostly because he loved her.

Unbeknownst to them, Bansha lay awake in the bed above them, smiling as she heard the banter between the young lovers.


	20. Tuesday at 3:30 am

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Thanks to all you folks out there who are taking the time to read this Old West yarn ("story", in cowboy talk). I have been enjoying your comments! XD**

* * *

Chapter 20 - Tuesday at 3:30 am

Kai woke up, opening his eyes and raising his head. From his vantage point on the floor of the hotel room, where he lay on his side, he could see a dark sky through the window curtains. It was not yet dawn.

He lowered his head back down on the pillow he was sharing with Sam. She was laying on her side with her back to him, her forearm resting on the arm he had draped around her waist.

He hated to risk disturbing her, but Mother Nature was calling him to the outhouse.

Standing up carefully and quietly, Kai opened the door slightly and peeked out, expecting to see Archer sitting on a chair just outside.

What he saw instead, however, was Archer following a painted lady into a room down the hall.

It occurred to Kai that Archer was probably going to be in that room for awhile, which meant...

...this was a chance for Kai and Sam to escape.

Kai quickly closed the door again and stooped down to shake the dozing beauty.

"Wake up, Sam!" he whispered, hoping not to disturb Bansha.

Her eyes fluttered open. "What time is it?" she asked in a drowsy voice.

"It's time to escape!"

"Wha-what?" Her drowsiness quickly evaporated. She scrambled to her feet.

"I'll lead the way to the horse stable," Kai said. "Take my hand and be sure to close the door behind us."

Once again, Kai opened the door slightly to ensure it was safe to proceed. Sam took one last look at Bansha, who was peacefully sleeping, and then grasped the strong, sure hand of the cowboy. They slipped out the door and Sam gently pulled the door shut behind them.

Quietly they stepped down the hall, past the room which Archer had entered, and made it to the stairway. Kai kept his eyes and ears alert for any sign of Morro. Likely the scoundrel was sleeping in his bed, but Kai was not going to simply assume that.

The stairway was devoid of people as they made their way down. They paused at the bottom of the stairs, which opened up to the lobby. There was one person visible - the desk clerk assigned to night duty.

There was no way to avoid being seen by him, but maybe they could get past him without attracting undue attention. Kai ran his fingers through his spiky brown hair to put some order to it. Then he offered a gentleman's arm to Sam and whispered, "Follow my lead."

She took his arm and matched his deliberately leisurely gait through the lobby.

"Good evening, sir, madam," the clerk nodded as they passed by him.

"Evenin'. Nice night for a walk," Kai said as he returned the nod. Sam nodded as well.

They continued their slowish pace through the rest of the lobby, out the door, and along the length of the hotel porch.

When they reached the street level, Kai once again took Sam's hand in his and led her in a run for the livery stable.

Three minutes later they arrived at the stable and found the stalls where the horses of Morro, Archer, and Bansha were located.

"Let's take Morro's horse," Kai suggested with a grin. "On his horse we can burn the breeze, plus get a little revenge on him, too."

Kai began to put the saddle on the horse while Sam took the canteens that were hanging on a nail in the wall and filled them at the water pump.

Once Kai was finished with the saddle, he excused himself to go to the outhouse, closing the door of the horse's stall after him. Sam sat down on the stool on the inside of the stall and waited for him to come back.

When she heard footsteps coming back, she began to stand up, but the long skirt of her dress knocked over the stool. She bent over to pick it up and straightened up just when the stall door opened.

Kai, however, was not the one opening the door.

It was Morro.

Sam let out a wail of fright. Morro had a surprised look on his face, not expecting to see her there as he began preparations for the trip to Qubla.

As his surprised look turned to one of anger, realizing why she was there, she took the stool in her hands and swung it with an overhand motion, as hard as she could, into Morro's face.

Morro groaned and fell backward, landing on the ground halfway out the doorway of the stall.

To Sam's immense relief, a familiar figure appeared and grabbed the gun out of Morro's holster, pointing it at him.

"All right, Morro, get up on your knees and put your hands above your head where I can see them," Kai demanded.

Morro slowly complied. "You think you'll be able to escape but you don't know your way around Skeleton Territory like I do," he sneered. "By noon you'll be wishing you'd never left Noscut!"

"Nice try at intimidating us, but it won't work!" Kai retorted.

Kai noticed that the cut on Morro's forehead, caused by the stool, was beginning to bleed.

"Whoa, Sam, I'd want you on my side in a bar fight anytime," he chuckled, taking his eyes off Morro for a second to smile at her.

But she was not smiling back. Her horrified gaze seemed to be focused on something behind his shoulder.

"Kai, look out!" she screamed, just before he felt intense pain on the back of his skull.

He collapsed into unconsciousness on the ground at the feet of Archer, who had just hammered his gun's handle on Kai's head.


	21. Tuesday Just Before Dawn

Chapter 21 - Tuesday Just Before Dawn

"Sorry for losin' track of 'em, boss," Archer apologized, chagrined by the near escape of the captives under his watch.

Morro chuckled as he stood up from his kneeling position. "Don't worry about it, Archer," he said to his employee. "It was worth seeing that hothead get what he deserved."

Morro retrieved his gun from the grasp of the unconscious Kai and used his foot to roll the cowboy face up. "Truss him up and put him on the back of Bansha's horse."

As the unscrupulous businessman picked up his hat from the ground and placed it on his head, he winced at the discomfort caused by the new injury to his forehead. He turned his focus to the girl who put it there.

Sam inhaled sharply, scared of the steely gaze he was giving her. He grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the stall.

"Archer, hand me some rope for this piece of calico. With you taking Bansha back to the Territory border, I'm already gonna have my hands full watching over these two by myself on the way to Qubla. And Sam seems to be getting feistier by the hour."

Sam narrowed her eyes at Morro and stated, "And I can get really feisty, too." At the top of her lungs in the quiet pre-dawn hours, she yelled "Horse thief! Horse thief! Horse thief!" She hoped that a holler like that would get someone's attention.

Morro and Archer evidently thought that might happen, for they scrambled to silence her. Morro pinned down her arms with one of his arms and muffled her screams with the hand of the other. Archer quickly took off his kerchief and retied it over her mouth.

Morro kept his hold on her while Archer got a length of rope and used it to bind her wrists. It was not an easy task. The blonde heiress did not submit willingly.

Morro then put his hands on her waist and lifted her up onto his horse in a sidesaddle position. Sam couldn't be sure, but it seemed to her that his hands lingered on her body just a bit longer than necessary.

Morro turned to help Archer bind Kai's wrists together, then bind his ankles together, and finally sling him over the back of Bansha's horse, face down. Tears welled up in Sam's eyes as she looked upon her injured cowboy.

"Saddle up your horse and let's get back to the hotel, and I'll help you with loading Bansha on your horse. You did say that Rufus sent a telegram confirming he'd meet you at the rendezvous place on the border to pick her up?"

"Yep. He knows he should cross the river at Northern Bridge, since I knocked down Central Bridge. He did say that Doc Julien ain't in town right now. Doc joined the posse that's lookin' fer us."

"No surprise there," Morro muttered.

Sam's heart leaped. There indeed was a posse looking for them. If only they could show up right now and save her and Kai.

Archer continued. "Rufus said he planned to start ridin' out about three o'clock this morning, so we both should be arrivin' at the rendezvous place at about the same time, since I'll be takin' it kinda slow on account of Bansha."

"Good. So when you've turned her, and the money I provided to care for her, over to Rufus, and then ridden to Qubla, remember that you'll be asking for a man named Adams at the bank, and he'll get you a share of our newly acquired cash. What are you going to do with it, now that I'm giving you a month off?"

"Haven't decided, but I know at least a little will go to women and whiskey!" Archer chuckled.

Morro laughed along with him. "Well, have fun till I see you again at the log house next month. You're a good right-hand man."

Sam felt like she was going to be sick.

By this time Archer had applied the saddle to his horse. The men then filled canteens with water, though Morro noted he had two less canteens that needed filling. Obviously Sam and Kai had planned to take the already-full canteens with them. He attended to those canteens for a minute, out of Sam's line of sight, and then put them in a special place in his pack, reserving them solely for the use of the young couple.

Finally the men mounted their horses. Morro and Sam rode on his horse in the same way that they had when they arrived in town. She sat sidesaddle in front of him while his arms encircled her as he held the horse's reins. Things seemed a little different this time, though. He just seemed a little too...close.

* * *

"Archer's taking you part way back to Ninjago Town. Rufus will take you the rest of the way home," Morro told Bansha as he lifted her off the hotel bed.

"Are the young 'uns comin', too?" Bansha asked.

"They're going with me to Qubla."

"And then yer gonna let those young 'uns go home, right?"

Morro was silent as they exited the hotel room.

"They're in love, Morro. Don't spoil their future," Bansha admonished him.

Morro remained silent as he carried her down the hotel stairs.

"Morro!" Bansha hissed. "The past is in the past. Emma's gone."

"I'm sorry, Bansha," he said as they crossed the lobby.

Bansha rested her chin on her chest, weak from talking, and closed her eyes. A tear trickled down her cheek. Morro was no better than those slimy varmint snakes from forty years ago.


	22. Tuesday Morning

Chapter 22 - Tuesday Morning

 _Where am I?_ Kai thought. He was being gently jostled, and the movement was not helping to ease the throbbing in his head. He opened his eyes and saw the walking legs of a horse.

The last seconds of his last memory flooded back to him. Pointing the gun at Morro. The look of terror on Sam's face. The intense pain.

The ground below the horse's hooves was dry and crumbly. He was in the desert. _We must be on our way to Qubla._ Kai tried to lift himself up but discovered his wrists were bound.

Turning his head to one side, he could see the golden rays of the just-risen sun casting long shadows across the barren landscape. His ears told him that one other horse was also walking, somewhere out of his line of sight. There was no talking going on, so he could only guess that Sam and Morro were riding that horse.

Already the temperature was hot, and his headache was strong. On top of that, he had barely slept in the past three nights. Kai closed his eyes again and succumbed to unconsciousness.

* * *

The Garmadon Ranch posse welcomed the clear blue morning sky.

The thunderstorm they had encountered on the night before last had thwarted their pursuit of the kidnap victims. They had planned to surprise that scoundrel Morro after sunset, but the heavy rain and the instant rivers produced by it had scuttled that plan. The destruction of Central Bridge, which they suspected was caused by Morro, proved to be an even greater headache. They were forced to ride up to Northern Bridge in order to cross Ninjago River. Because that bridge was a nine-hour ride away, they had lost valuable time in the hunt.

They were finally able to cross the river late yesterday afternoon and enter Skeleton Territory. And now, after a night of sleeping under the stars and a quick cold breakfast, they were headed to Noscut, although approaching it from a different direction than they originally planned.

Sheriff Lloyd had surmised that since Noscut was the nearest town to the boundary dividing Skeleton Territory and Ninjago, Morro would be heading there, and so they should, too.

Lloyd made the decision to cross the boundary, though he had no legal authority to perform arrests in Skeleton Territory. As much as he would have liked to put handcuffs on that slimy varmint Morro, he reminded himself that the main purpose of this mission was to rescue his uncle's employee and the saloon girl. His sheriff's badge was safely in his pocket, waiting to be proudly redisplayed on his vest pocket when the group returned to Ninjago Town. In the meantime, he had sent Deputy Dareth back home so that the Ninjago Town citizens would still have a lawman on duty.

As the men rode, Jay relayed to them an unusual dream he had dreamed in which his bedroll turned into angry rattlesnakes who would be made happy only by eating flapjacks. Many eyes rolled as the auburn-haired cowboy told his tale.

Zane, who served as the lookout for the group, had been viewing the landscape through a pair of binoculars when he spoke up. "Excuse me, Jay, but we appear to have company coming from the opposite direction."

"How many horses are we talking about?" Lloyd asked as he pulled his horse alongside that of Zane's.

Zane described the approaching party as the details became clear. "I see one horse which appears to have two figures riding on it. One of the figures appears to be a woman. The woman is sitting in front of the man. She appears to be an older woman...to be slumped over, not sitting straight...she's wearing a shawl...Good gravy, it appears to be Bansha and Archer!"

"Wonder why they aren't with Morro, but I guess we'll find out shortly. Cole and Doc, hide yourselves behind the trees on that side of the trail," Lloyd briskly instructed. "Zane and Uncle will hide with me on this side. Jay, you block the trail by pretending you're having horse trouble, but keep your face hidden by standing on the side of the horse facing away from them."

"Aww, why do I have to be the one in plain sight?"

"Because we had to listen to that bizarre dream of yours. But don't worry, everyone is going to follow my lead and come out in the open with their guns drawn when I do."

The men went to their places while Jay muttered.

Zane had spotted the horse while it was some distance away from them, so a bit of time passed before it reached the place where they were hiding.

"Howdy, Stranger," Archer addressed the obscured rider of the horse blocking the path. "You mind movin' yer steed?"

"Yes, he does mind," Lloyd loudly proclaimed, cocking his gun and aiming it at Archer. The sound of five other gun clicks filled the air. "Throw your gun down, Archer."

"Hey, Sheriff, you got no jurisdiction around here."

Lloyd approached him, gun still drawn. He waved it, saying, "This is my jurisdiction right here, Archer."

"Well, I'd raise my hands in the air but I'm holdin' on to a sick lady here."

"Hold onto her with one hand and give me your gun with the other."

Archer saw he could stall no longer, so he complied with the Sheriff's request. Lloyd waved to the other men to come forward as he observed the slumped old woman whose eyes were closed. "What's the matter with Bansha?"

"She collapsed about midday yesterday. Wanted to go back to Ninjago Town to die. So I was ridin' up to Northern Bridge to hand her over to Rufus."

"Boys, keep your guns on Archer. Doc, you wanna come over here and take a look at her?" Lloyd motioned to Doc Julien.

The physician came up to get a closer look at Bansha. He noted such things as the color of her skin and her pulse.

"She's not doing all that well. I would recommend getting her back to Ninjago Town as soon as possible."

Lloyd ran his fingers through his hair, thinking about the next course of action to take.

"Nephew, I can take Bansha home," Mr. Wu offered. "As difficult as she has been to deal with, she did save our town all those years ago, so I'll do I what I can to make her comfortable until Doc gets back to town."

"Thank you, Uncle," Lloyd smiled. "I suppose Rufus will be fit to be tied when he finds out he rode all that way for nothing, but he'll just have to deal with it."

Lloyd and Doc Julien gently transferred Bansha to Mr. Wu's horse. Doc gave the ranch owner some instructions for her care, and soon Mr. Wu was retracing his steps to Northern Bridge on the way back to Ninjago Town, accompanied by the frail woman.

Lloyd turned his attention to Archer once again. "So where are Morro and Kai and Sam?"

"What makes ya think I'm gonna tell ya?"

Maybe it was due to the lack of a hot meal over the last two days, or maybe it was due to lingering humiliation over his failure to maintain law and order on Sunday, but Lloyd lost his patience. Grabbing Archer by the collar, Lloyd pulled him off his horse and threw him to the ground. Holding a clenched fist to Archer's face, Lloyd gritted his teeth and hissed, "Because you're gonna be sorry if you don't tell!"

The other men looked at each other, wide eyed. Lloyd was usually a stickler for lawful procedures and not usually so violent.

Archer recognized that the young man could do serious damage to an older man's face.

"All right. All right. They left Noscut this morning to head to Qubla."

Lloyd's eyes lit up. "That means they're about six hours ahead of us. We're still kinda far back, but we can catch 'em. Gentlemen, let's stop in Noscut for supplies and head for the desert to get our friends back!"

"And Archer," he added, "you're coming with us!"


	23. Tuesday at Midday

Chapter 23 - Tuesday at Midday

Shortly before noon, Morro stopped the horses for a water break in a shady spot behind an outcropping of rock.

He dismounted but kept Sam on his horse. Her head was draped with a blanket he had put on her to keep off the intense rays of the sun.

Sam's eyes, filled with contempt for him, peered over the kerchief which had been put over her mouth before dawn.

 _Her eyes are definitely deep blue like Emma's,_ he thought.

Morro attended to his horse. Then he got out his canteen and took several big swallows of refreshing water.

He fished through his packed belongings for the canteens he had specially reserved for his captives. Selecting one, he reached up and handed it to her. She was able to grasp it, though her wrists were bound. He pulled down her kerchief below her chin, and without saying a word, she took several deep gulps.

 _That's right, my dear,_ Morro thought to himself as he smiled. _Drink up._ When she finished drinking the amount she wanted, he took the canteen from her and put it back in its place in his knapsack.

Kai had remained inert all this time, but now it was time to wake him up. Morro slid him off Bansha's horse none too gently, jarring him awake. Morro propped him sitting up against the rock outcropping.

"We're taking a break. I'm getting you some water," Morro tersely explained.

"Thanks," Kai responded, equally terse.

Morro returned to the packed belongings. As he did so, Kai's eyes met Sam's. She smiled at him. Kai thought she looked just as beautiful now, with a dirty blanket draped over her head, as she did when he first saw her, all gussied up in her fancy turquoise saloon dress.

Both of their faces registered confusion when Morro unexpectedly climbed back on his horse.

"This is where the trail ends for you, cowboy," Morro explained. "I've let you play with Sam long enough. Now I'm staking my claim to her."

"What?!" Sam exclaimed. "Our agreement was that I'd give you my money and you'd leave Kai and me alone!"

"I suppose it was. Oh, well, too bad."

"You double-crosser!" Kai hissed.

Morro tossed a knife and a canteen at Kai's feet.

"Use the knife to cut yourself free, but I don't know how far you'll be able to travel after I do this."

He took out his gun, aimed it at the head of Bansha's horse, and pulled the trigger.

Kai's jaw dropped. Sam screamed.

"As for the canteen, you should know I put the rest of the potion in it. So I'm not totally heartless. That way you won't be fully aware of your death."

"Bastard!" Kai shouted.

"How can you just leave him here to die?" Sam wailed. She wriggled violently to get off the horse but Morro held tightly onto her.

"Oh, I forgot one thing," he said. The sound of the cock of his gun made her pause her thrashing.

Morro aimed at Kai's foot and let a bullet fly.

Kai gasped in pain.

"Kai!" Sam screamed.

"Farewell, cowboy!" As Morro turned his horse around to leave, he noticed the look on Kai's face, a mixture of disbelief, anger, and fear. _Garmadon gave me that same look right before..._

As Morro and Sam galloped away, she screamed "Nooooo!"

She started to use her head to butt him, but all of a sudden she felt dizzy.

"Just so you know, my dear, I put some of the potion in your canteen, too."

Kai sat and watched them disappear in the distance while tears of frustration - as well as tears of pain - welled in his eyes. The desert was quiet as the weight of his predicament sank in.

He examined his injury. Thankfully the bullet did not go through the middle of his foot - it grazed the side, taking some shoe leather with it. The wound was bleeding a bit, however, so he would need to bind it up with a cloth.

Before that, however, he needed to free his ankles. As he took the knife in between his bound hands and began to saw through the ropes, Kai considered the options one had when one was stranded with an injured foot in the middle of a hot desert with limited water that was tainted. It didn't help that he had left his hat at the church on Sunday, so he had no hat to protect him from the sun. He'd have to sling his coat over his head.

Kai tried not to let despair grow inside him, but it was difficult.

A glint of sun reflected off something shiny on the ground. When Kai had finally freed his ankles, he hobbled over to it.

One of Sam's hairpins lay on the dry ground. He picked it up and clutched it tightly in his hand.

He vowed he would find his woman. And when he found her captor, he would make him wish he'd never been born.


	24. Tuesday at Sunset

Chapter 24 - Tuesday at Sunset

Near sunset, a group of five tired men and their involuntary guest were preparing to end their long, hot day's journey.

Cole and Jay rode on either side of Archer to keep an eye on him. Lloyd had decided that as long as guns and supplies were kept out of Archer's reach, he nor his horse needed to be tethered, especially during their travel in the middle of the desert. Lloyd knew that Archer knew that trying to cross the desert without access to water meant certain death.

Lloyd had been a bit concerned about how Doc Julien would fare during the day, since Doc was more of an indoors man and not used to being in the scorching desert. But Doc merely wiped his brow a little more often and took more swigs from the canteen and did not complain.

Zane used his binoculars to scan the landscape for a suitable place to camp for the evening.

"It appears there was some trouble behind that outcropping of rock over yonder," he reported. "A horse is down."

"Let's go take a look," Lloyd said.

They rode over to the place Zane had indicated and dismounted their animals. A dead horse lay on its side, a bullet hole in its head.

Jay kept an eye on Archer while Cole checked the animal. "This mare's legs weren't broken. Why would someone do this to a healthy horse?"

"That's Bansha's horse," Archer announced.

"What?!" Lloyd exclaimed.

"Check the name under the saddle," Archer urged.

Cole looked. "Yep, he's right."

Doc Julien walked a few feet away and stooped down to examine the ground. He wiped his forefinger on a spot and rubbed his thumb on his finger.

"Blood. Fairly fresh."

For the second time that day, Lloyd grabbed Archer by his collar with two fists. "What went on here, Archer?" he demanded.

"I swear I don't know!" Archer nervously replied. "The last I saw 'em, Morro and the girl were ridin' his mount, and your hothead friend was trussed up on Bansha's horse. I thought they were all headin' to Qubla!"

Lloyd let go of Archer. He cupped his chin with his hand and looked at the ground in thought. "Morro must have shot the horse. Kai didn't have a gun. Even if Kai got a hold of a gun, he wouldn't kill a good horse."

"So why would Morro shoot Bansha's mount? That would leave only his ride, and three people can't fit on one horse," Jay wondered.

"He didn't intend for three people to ride one horse," Lloyd said slowly. He looked up at his friends with wide eyes. "He intended to leave Kai behind!"

"That son of a ... !" Cole exclaimed, not finishing the sentence. "So where's Kai?"

"Perhaps Kai undid his ropes," Zane interjected. "Bits of rope are in a small pile over here."

"Here's some more blood," Doc Julien called from a short distance away.

"All right," Lloyd said. "Kai must have done some walking while he was bleeding from some wound. Let's hurry and follow his trail, before it gets too dark."

Anxious to locate their friend, the posse remounted their horses and kept their eyes peeled on the landscape for further clues as to which direction Kai traveled in.

After a short while, they all noticed that the rays of the setting golden sun were being reflected off an object about several dozen yards away. Lloyd galloped toward it, with the others closely following.

The object was Sam's hairpin, firmly clutched in the hand of an inert Kai, who was laying face down on the ground, his coat in a heap next to him.

Doc Julien was the first of the men to dismount his horse. He grabbed his black medicine bag from his pack and approached the cowboy.

"He's alive!" Doc announced after checking the unconscious man's pulse. At the good news, whoops of joy resounded among the others as they gathered around.

Doc rolled Kai over on his back. "But he's got the signs of heat exhaustion. Can someone get some water, please?" he asked as he unbuttoned Kai's perspiration-soaked shirt. Kai began to mumble unintelligible words, though his eyes remained closed.

Jay knelt down with a canteen, and Doc directed him to lift up Kai's shoulders and give him a drink. Doc grabbed Kai's coat with the intention of using it to prop up Kai's feet.

Underneath the coat was the canteen Morro had given to Kai. Doc picked it up and was surprised at the heaviness of it. It seemed half full.

"I wonder why Kai didn't drink it all," Doc wondered aloud. "He'd be less dehydrated if he had."

Kai moaned.

Doc opened the canteen cap and sniffed. His face turned pale.

Jay noticed. "What's the matter, Doc?"

"That potion I sold to Morro. It's in this water."

Lloyd spoke up. "I'm guessing Kai knew that, too. If the canteen was half-full, he probably had been afraid to drink it. At first. Until he got desperate."

"I suppose it's a good thing he finally did. He'd likely be a dead man by now, otherwise. As it stands, he'll just be a bit loco for a while." Doc poured the canteen's contents on Kai's chest in an effort to cool him down.

"And I suppose it's a good thing he's a bit loco right now, 'cause I have to tend to his foot, and it might hurt a bit," Doc added. "At least now we know where the blood came from."

Jay took Sam's hairpin from Kai's hand. "I'll save this to give to him later," he said.

Just then, Kai began having a hallucination.

At first, his words were unintelligible, but then the men saw him smile when he clearly said...

"Let's find out where else you're ticklish, Sam."

They looked at each other in silence for a second before they exploded with laughter.

Lloyd said, with a chuckle, "I think he's going to be all right."


	25. Wednesday

Chapter 25 - Wednesday

 _The snakes are surrounding us. I'm shooting and shooting, but they won't stop invading. Kai is right beside me, also shooting. But it's no use. They're crowding around him. They're dragging him away. He's calling out to me:_

 _"Be a survivor so I can survive in your heart!"_

Sam woke up with a start in the middle of the night in her Qubla hotel room, next door to the room of that murderous madman, Morro. Her heart was pounding after the nightmare she had just dreamed.

Yet she felt like she was still in a nightmare. Just a dozen or so hours ago, she had watched Morro hand Kai a death sentence by abandoning him in the middle of the desert.

From that point on, even during her hours of being under the influence of the potion, her tears had fallen constantly. They did not stop until the time she fell asleep.

Now she had greater insight as to how Bansha had felt, witnessing her man face his inevitable doom.

But just like Bansha had taken comfort from the final words her husband had uttered, perhaps Sam could take comfort from these words as well. Though she didn't feel like she could live without Kai, she resolved to go on as best she could, so that he could live on, too.

She resolved to hold her head high when morning light came.

And when she and Morro went to go visit the bank.

And when, as Morro informed her they would do, they traveled to his log house in the Stone Mountains.

She tried to steel herself, for she knew that being a survivor meant enduring a journey of anguish with an unknown end.

And she guessed that her anguish would intensify after the very next sunset.

* * *

 _"Sam!" I'm standing in this dark cave calling her name. She's not answering._

 _"Kai!"_ _Jay's voice is filling the air._

 _"Kai, look at me!" This time, Doc Julien is talking._

 _"But I have to find Sam!" I explain to them. "Morro took her away from me and she's in serious trouble!"_

 _"We know, but you have to wake up before we can find her!"_

Sweating, Kai opened his eyes to an early dawn sky. He looked up at Jay and Doc Julien. They were kneeling on either side of him, still holding on to his shoulders after shaking him awake.

"You were having a nightmare, Kai," Doc Julien said. He picked up the canteen of fresh water next to him and opened it.

"Morro double-crossed Sam! He's not going to let her go!" Kai exclaimed, still not quite fully awake.

"Well, pardner, we kinda figured that was why he left you here in the desert yesterday," Jay said, lifting Kai's head while Doc Julien gave him some water out of the canteen.

"But don't worry, we'll get her back," Lloyd said as he walked up to them. He, along with everyone else in the group, was awakened by Kai's shouts.

He kneeled by Kai. "How ya doing?"

Kai sat up quickly. "I'm fine. But we need to get going..." Because he had sat up too quickly, dizziness almost overcame him. He put a hand on the side of his head to steady himself.

"Easy there, now," Lloyd cautioned. "We found you in a tight spot last evening. Let's see, you were dehydrated, you had a bullet wound to your foot..."

"Don't forget about being sunburned," Cole added, joining the conversation.

"And having rope burns on your wrists," Zane chimed in.

"And a bump on my head, thanks to Archer," Kai remembered, upon noticing Morro's right-hand man. "I see he's joined the group."

"So we're glad we found you when we did," Lloyd smiled, giving Kai a pat on the shoulder before he stood up again.

Kai looked around at the group. "Thanks, boys, I'm grateful for that."

"Here, Kai, this belongs to you," Jay said. He took off his hat and reached in to retrieve Sam's hairpin. He put it in Kai's hand and closed Kai's fingers around it. "It helped us find you. You could say she helped us find you."

Kai's throat tightened as he fingered the metal hair accessory. "And now we're gonna find _her_!"

"All right, let's eat our cornbread and get going," Lloyd said. "We got us a lady to save today."

* * *

Thanks to a little persuasion from Lloyd, Archer revealed that the reason Morro had been heading to Qubla was to see a man named Adams at the First National Bank. Morro had wanted to make sure the deposit of money had been made. Lloyd, Cole, and Zane went to pay a visit to Adams while Jay, Doc Julien, and Kai waited at the far edge of the city. Kai had not wanted to be in the group that waited, but Doc Julien thought he needed to rest up some more. The waiting group kept an eye on Archer, who was mad that he wasn't going to be able to collect the cash that Morro had promised him.

While Kai waited, he fingered Archer's gun, which had been given to him by Lloyd to use. Kai imagined using this gun on Archer's head in the same way Archer had used it on Kai's head. Doc Julien offered to give Kai's original gun back, but Kai told him to keep it for a while.

Lloyd and the two ranch hands returned with good news. They had found Adams and fooled him into thinking they were friends of Morro, so he had revealed that Morro and a pretty blonde girl had left his office just three hours before, and also that they were heading to a log house that Morro had built years ago in the Stone Mountains, about a nine-hour ride from Qubla.

Kai's heart beat faster. Apparently Sam was still all right and she and that scumbag were not too far ahead of them.

"Archer, have you ever been to this log house before?" he asked the scoundrel.

"Maybe," Archer grinned. "Maybe not."

Kai had no patience for playing games. Time was of the essence. He drew Archer's gun out of his holster and pointed it at him. "Wouldn't it be embarrassing to be shot by your own gun?"

Lloyd held up his hand at the hothead cowboy. "Whoa, easy there, Kai. We need him."

"Yep, ya better listen to the sheriff," Archer taunted.

Suddenly Lloyd spun around and connected his fist to the varmint's jaw. Archer staggered backward onto the ground.

"So, Archer, have you ever been to this log house before?" Lloyd repeated the question, standing over him.

"Yep, I have, Sheriff," Archer replied, holding his face. He could feel a looseness in one of his remaining teeth.

"Good, I'm glad we have an understanding," Lloyd said, reaching down to grab Archer and pull him back up to a standing position. "We'll need you to guide us once we get to the mountains."


	26. Wednesday Evening

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **I haven't published in a few days because I decided to do some rewriting of the later chapters of this story which I had already pre-written, so now there are well over 30 chapters.**

 **Hope you enjoy reading them!**

 **Thanks to the 400 visitors to my story and to those who have faved and followed! And thanks to the commenters - Kai's Girlfriend, kairocksrainbow, MMM, ElvenPrincess, and 1234!**

* * *

Chapter 26 - Wednesday Evening

Though the sun had not yet set below the horizon, the woods had gotten darker as Morro's horse, carrying its two riders, stepped through the underbrush. It was making its way up one of the mountains in the Stone Mountain range.

The air temperature had fallen as they had climbed into a higher altitude. The blanket which had been draped over Sam's head yesterday to protect her from the hot sun was now tied around her shoulders to protect her from the chill of the evening. Morro had taken care of that since she could not. He had bound her wrists again once they had left Qubla.

He had left the kerchief off her mouth, but she had deliberately avoided speaking to him all day, at least as much as possible.

At last they reached a clearing in the woods in which Sam could see, though the daylight was growing dim, a two-story wooden structure made from log planks. A covered porch stretched along the entire front of the first floor. Two first-floor glass windows and three second-floor glass windows formed a symmetrical pattern around the front door.

"Wrayth usually has done a good job of getting the place ready when I've come around to visit it over the years," Morro said, breaking the silence between them as he guided the horse to the door of the adjacent barn. "We'll see how he did this time with the short notice I gave him, even though he said getting the telegram just yesterday wasn't a problem for him." Wrayth lived in a shack at the foot of the mountain, and they had stopped to see him so that Morro could pay him for his efforts.

"I see Wrayth stocked the hen house," Morro noted, observing the pecking and clucking of the birds in their habitat near the horse barn.

Morro dismounted his animal, and after lifting Sam by her waist to take her off as well, he reached into a pocket and pulled out his knife. With a few deft strokes he sliced through the ropes that were binding her wrists.

Morro poked his head inside the barn door and reached for something.

"Here's a clean towel. You can freshen up at the water pump over there before we go inside," he said with a towel in his hand, motioning to a spot a few yards away.

She took the towel from him and walked over to the pump while he attended to the horse. Splashing cold water on her face, neck, and forearms made her shiver, but it felt good to remove some of the trail dust that had accumulated during all the riding they had done within the past four days.

As she dried off with the towel, she surveyed her surroundings for the possibility of escape. Morro had told her that bears and mountain cats roamed these woods, and she knew the thick underbrush would slow travel back down the mountain. If she were to steal Morro's horse, maybe her chances would be better. She had never actually ridden a horse by herself, but she wouldn't let that fact deter her from doing so, if and when she had to.

Sam looked over at Morro, who was motioning to her to come with him into the house.

"Welcome to your new home," Morro told her as he held the front door open for her.

Sam cringed inwardly. This might indeed be her new home, but she didn't like hearing that statement out loud.

As she walked through the front door ahead of him, she encountered the stairway to the upstairs. To the left of the stairway was a room apparently being used as a office, judging from the books and papers in it. A hallway led to the back of the house, where presumably the kitchen and dining room were located. To the right of the stairway sat a parlor with a fireplace, a sofa, two chairs, and a buffet table displaying some liquor and glasses. Morro led Sam into this room and lit a lamp on the buffet table.

"You can wait here in the parlor while I put together some supper. Want a drink?" Morro asked, holding up a bottle of red wine.

Sam wanted to keep her wits about her, but she also wanted something to calm her nerves. She nodded at Morro and he poured her a glass.

Handing it to her, he said, "I'll be back," and he left the room.

Taking a sip of wine, she began to study the room. It was evident that Morro had money. Some of the people she knew back east had some of the same furnishings.

A framed photograph on the fireplace mantel caught her eye. The photograph was of a girl who Sam guessed was about 15 or 16 years old. The girl appeared to be dressed up. After studying it for a minute, Sam realized what was especially fascinating about the photo.

The girl looked like Sam.

From the parlor doorway, Morro's voice startled her when he said...

"That's Emma."


	27. Wednesday Night

Chapter 27 - Wednesday Night

Sam's eyes widened as she recalled the instances on Monday, in the jail cell and in the tiny saloon room, in which Bansha's daughter Emma had been mentioned.

"We're going to eat some breakfast for supper. Come into the dining room before the food get cold." Morro said.

As Morro and Sam ate a supper of bacon and eggs, Morro told her about the girl in the photograph.

"I was nineteen years old when I came to Ninjago Town, eager to make my fortune. But a young man also thinks of other things besides money."

"One Sunday afternoon there was a town picnic. At first it seemed unlikely that my attending the picnic would result in meeting a special young lady. But then Bansha and Isaiah and their children arrived."

Morro ate a forkful of eggs. "Emma was fifteen years old, older than her two brothers. She was the prettiest thing I'd ever laid eyes on, with her golden hair and deep blue eyes. I immediately asked her to dance to a song the band was playing. Bansha and Isaiah were reluctant to approve at first, since they thought that their daughter was still a little too young to be courted, but they soon relented when she begged."

"That dance was the first of many we would dance that afternoon. She liked me, too, for she turned down other young men who asked her."

"There was a photographer at the picnic. I paid him to take a photograph of her. That is what you saw on the fireplace mantel."

After eating a piece of bacon, Morro continued. "When the picnic was over, I wanted to kiss Emma goodbye. Isaiah and Bansha thought it was a little too soon for that, but they were amenable to me seeing her again. I was so happy about that, and I couldn't get her out of my mind for the whole next week after that."

"Then on the next Saturday, Isaiah and Bansha stopped into my saloon when they came into town for supplies. They invited me to come out to their farm for supper that evening. Though Saturday nights were usually my busiest nights at the saloon, I thought the barkeeper could handle things while I went over there."

"But as fate would have it, that was the day the snakes invaded."

"Emma, the love of my life, had disappeared."

Morro took the last bite of eggs. "In my shock at her disappearance at the hands of the snakes, I had this log house built in the mountains. I thought that somehow Emma, her brothers, and her father would turn up again, and then I would move the whole family up here and we would never need to worry about snakes bothering us in the cool mountain climate."

"Obviously I never saw Emma again."

"After the invasion, Bansha was the only link I had left to Emma. Since Bansha's livelihood was destroyed, I decided to take care of her by offering her a job of being my assistant."

Morro swallowed the last of his bacon. "Imagine my shock when you showed up last week, practically looking like a duplicate of Emma. I had insane thoughts, like maybe the snakes had kept Emma frozen in a time machine and wiped her old memories before releasing her. Insane thoughts."

 _Could he be insane?_ Sam wondered.

"Anyway, I was curious about where you came from," Morro continued, "so that's why I had a background check done on you, and then I learned you were rich."

Morro looked down at his plate. "At first I just wanted your money. Acquiring your assets doubled my wealth."

Then he leaned close to Sam's face and looked at her with a steely gaze. She tried not to flinch.

"But now, in addition to your money, I want you," he said in a low voice. "I want you to be my Emma."

 _He is insane!_ Sam concluded.

Sam's hand had been resting on the table. Morro placed his large hand over her small one, covering it completely.

Sam glanced out the window at the dark sky. What she had feared was going to happen after sunset tonight was now starting to come true.

She swallowed before speaking to him for the first time since they had arrived at the log house. "What if I don't want to be your Emma?" She intended for her tone to sound defiant, but instead it came out quavering.

"Nonsense. Of course you do," he grinned fiendishly. "You're no doubt exhausted from the journey. Why don't we go into the parlor and relax a while, shall we?"

With a tight grip on her upper arm, Morro firmly lifted Sam out of her dining chair and guided her back to the parlor.

"Have a seat," he said, indicating one end of the parlor sofa. She sat down slowly as he proceeded to light the candles on each end of the parlor sofa and on the buffet table.

While standing at the buffet table, he asked, "Would you like a refill of your wine glass?"

"I'll have some whiskey now," she answered, surprising even herself. She despised the taste of spirits, realizing the irony of working in a saloon where she was around them all the time. But right now she needed an extra strong drink.

Smirking, Morro poured her a glass and poured another one for himself. After handing her glass to her, he set about lighting a fire in the fireplace.

Sam grimaced as she took a gulp of the drink in her hand. Her eyes watered as she endured the burning sensation of the whiskey heading down to her stomach.

The log in the fireplace soon cast a robust glow upon the parlor as it began to burn. Now that the task was completed, Morro turned his focus to Sam. In the firelight, his eyes looked especially diabolical to her. He picked up his whiskey glass and sat down on the parlor sofa right next to her, putting his arm around her shoulder.

"Now isn't this nice?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She gulped down some more whiskey.

Morro drained his glass within a minute and set it down on the end table just beyond Sam. He took Sam's glass from her, also draining the rest of it quickly, and set it down on the end table with a loud clink. Then he moved in on her.

Sam gasped as he attacked her neck with rough kisses. She was unable to push him away, for he had one of her arms pinned between his body and the back of the sofa, and the other arm was pinned by his tight grip on it.

Her eyes darted around the room, frantically searching for any object, any idea - anything - she could use to stop him. Before he went further.

Inspiration struck her.

"I think that cut I put on your forehead with the stall stool might be bleeding," she whispered to him. "Can I take a look at it for a second?"

He unburied his face from her neck and allowed her a look.

She squinted. "It's a little too dark. Let me put some more light on it."

He sat up so that she could reach for the candle on the end table. She held it up to his face...

...and smashed the candle in his left eye.

Morro made a horrible sound of pain as Sam hopped off the sofa and bolted for the front door.


	28. The Accident

Chapter 28 - The Accident

A blast of chilly air greeted Sam as she yanked open the front door of the log house, but there was no time to grab anything to keep warm with. She was going to escape back down the mountain, and she was headed for the barn to steal Morro's horse. She wasn't even going to worry about putting on a saddle.

The moonlight provided a bit of illumination of the brush-covered clearing as she quickly ran from the house to the barn. She could see, in her path, some very short but thick branches of a dead bush sticking up about two inches from the ground. She hopped over the bush easily. However, she did not see the patch of wet leaves, moistened by the evening dew, that was located on the other side of the dead bush. Her feet slipped out forward from underneath her, and she landed on her back. The skin of her lower back was instantly shredded by the stubby branches.

Sam let out loud horrifying wails at the excruciating pain.

Her wails were heard by four cowboys, a sheriff, a doctor, and their involuntary guest. They had ridden their horses hard in order to shave time and distance between themselves and the ones they were pursuing. Now, Archer was trussed up in the horse barn. Jay and Zane were tucked away just inside the barn door. Cole and Doc Julien were hiding behind trees at the point where the clearing met the path down the mountain. Lloyd and Kai were concealing themselves behind the hen house.

Lloyd was just about to put a plan into action to draw Morro out of the house and in the open, away from Sam. He and Kai were going to cause the hens to squawk, to make Morro think a wild animal was attacking them. When Morro would come out to investigate, as Lloyd anticipated he would, Lloyd would surprise Morro with his gun drawn, and the others would follow suit. Morro would be outnumbered, even if he was armed.

They had heard Morro's exclamation of pain, but Lloyd didn't expect that it would lead to Sam's sudden departure from the house. When she did run out, the sheriff's original plans were buffaloed, so he quickly needed to rethink the plan.

Before he could come up with an alternative, Sam fell and hurt herself.

It was difficult for Lloyd to listen to Sam's moans of pain, but he had to hold the back of Kai's coat to keep him from rushing out from their hiding place to help her. Lloyd expected Morro to exit the house any moment.

Then across the way he saw Doc Julien leave the trees he and Cole were hiding behind, in order to go to Sam's side with his black medical bag. Lloyd face-palmed himself. _Doc, you're gonna get yourself caught!_ Lloyd thought, but he supposed he wasn't totally surprised. Physicians took an oath to heal people.

The light coming from the open front door dimmed. Morro had indeed spotted someone outside and had closed the door halfway in an effort to conceal his own silhouette. He fired a warning shot from just inside the front door. "Julien, is that you?" he called.

"Yes, it's me, Morro. Sam severely hurt herself. I'm checking her injuries," the physician called back.

"Well, leave your firearm out there and bring her in here," Morro commanded. "And no funny business from the rest of you!" he called out into the night air. "I know you're out there!"

Kai knew that the doctor would not be able to carry Sam by himself.

Kai took Archer's gun out of his holster and tossed it on the ground. Before Lloyd could stop him, he walked out from the behind the hen house into the clearing with his arms above his head. Lloyd face-palmed himself again.

"Morro!" Kai shouted. "I'm coming to help. I'm unarmed!" Kai limped a bit due to the bullet wound Morro had given his foot yesterday.

Sam, lying on the ground and looking up at the sky, wondered if her pain was playing tricks on her mind or if she had actually heard a voice she didn't expect to ever hear again.

"Oh. It's you, hothead." Morro seemed surprised. "Are you like a cat with nine lives?" Somehow the posse must have rescued the cowboy.

Kai ignored his comment as he reached the spot in the clearing where Doc Julien was kneeling by Sam. He knelt down on the other side of her and brushed the back of his hand against her cheek.

"Howdy," he said softly as he smiled tenderly at her.

"Oh, Kai, you're alive!" she whispered, tears of joy mingling with her tears of pain as she reached up to her cheek to intertwine her hand with his.

Doc Julien emptied his holster of Kai's gun and put it on the ground. "Kai, how about if you take her shoulders and I take her feet, then we lift her up on the count of three," he suggested.

Kai stood up and positioned himself at her head, kneeling down again to place his hands under her shoulders. Doc Julien positioned himself at her feet, putting a forearm through the handle of his black bag before grabbing her ankles.

"Ready, Sam?" the doctor asked.

"I'm ready," she said through gritted teeth.

"On the count of three," Doc said. "One...two...three!"

Sam hollered loudly as Doc Julien and Kai lifted her. She breathed heavily through her gritted teeth as the two men transported her through the front door into the house under the watch of Morro.

"Put her in the parlor," he instructed them, keeping his gun pointed at them. He slammed the front door shut, once they were inside. Grabbing a nearby parlor chair, he shoved it against the front door, jamming the back of it under the doorknob as an extra obstacle in the way of the posse, should they try to raid the house.

As Kai and Doc headed to the parlor sofa, Doc advised Kai that Sam should be placed on the sofa lying on her side with her back facing the room so that he could have the best access to treat her injuries. Together they carefully lowered her down.

In the light of the fireplace, blood stains and crumbs of dirt and foliage were visible on Sam's back. Kai also noticed multiple bruises on her neck, obviously put there by the lips of Morro. Kai clenched and unclenched his fists several times to calm himself down. Now was not the right time to avenge his woman.

"What happened to you, Morro?" Doc asked, noticing the madman's face for the first time.

"That little jezebel shoved a candle in my eye!"

Kai hid his smile. Sam had avenged herself.


	29. Late on Wednesday Night

Chapter 29 - Late on Wednesday Night

Doc Julien pulled up the remaining parlor chair in front of the sofa and sat down to tend to Sam.

He looked around the room. "Morro, can you spare that table runner along the buffet? I need a towel."

Morro didn't want the expensive cloth to get dirty, but he didn't want to leave the room to find an alternate cloth, so he handed it to Doc Julien, who spread it along the sofa next to Sam.

The doctor then fished through his black bag and took out a pair of scissors. "To reach her back injury, I'll have to cut her dress." He looked at Kai as if to obtain his permission to do so, such as a husband would give permission for a procedure to be done on his wife.

Morro perceived this and was annoyed. Sam was his woman now. "Do it, Julien," he ordered.

Kai nodded, biting his lower lip to stop himself from responding to Morro. Doc gathered up Sam's stray dangling blonde tresses to get them out of the way, pinning them up using one of her hairpins. Then, starting at the collar of her dress at the nape of her neck, he cut the fabric in a line along her spine, slicing through the dress, her corset, and her chemise. The cutting became a little tricky in the injury area, but Doc carefully proceeded and stopped when he reached a point below her waist. He moved aside the fabric to reveal the extent of her injury.

Kai forced himself to not look away from the severe wounds, but it was hard.

"These cuts will need disinfecting," Doc Julien announced. "Morro, can you spare a bottle of liquor?"

Morro handed him the open whiskey bottle.

"How about a glass?" Doc requested.

"Are you gonna disinfect or drink?" Morro asked, exasperated, but he passed a glass to the physician.

Doc poured whiskey into the glass. "The drink is for Sam, before I disinfect." He then turned to Sam. "I know you're in an awkward position to drink anything, my dear, but can you down at least half this glass?"

Sam knew why he was asking her to drink - to dull the pain of the disinfecting process - so she took the glass from him and lifted her head, forcing herself to down the strong whiskey as fast as she could, so she could feel the effect as soon as possible. As she did so, the doctor removed the visible bits of foliage from her skin.

When Doc was satisfied with what he had done, he said, "Kai, I need you to kneel over here and give her your hands," as he motioned to the end of the sofa where her head was.

Then he patted Sam's shoulder as he addressed her. "Reach up and take Kai's hands, Sam. And don't be afraid to scream like mad, 'cause you're not gonna feel good when I pour this alcohol on your back. But you'll heal much faster afterward."

"If she's gonna yell, then come with me to the front door, cowboy," Morro motioned to Kai with his gun. "Tell your friends what the ruckus is gonna be about so they don't try to come inside and see for themselves." Morro moved the parlor chair so the door could be opened.

As Morro hid himself just to the inside of the front door and pointed his gun at Kai, Kai opened the door just wide enough to holler out to his companions that the noise they'd be likely to hear shortly would be from Sam due to Doc doing a procedure on her.

Kai closed the door and went to kneel by the parlor sofa while Morro once again placed the parlor chair under the doorknob.

Kai grasped Sam's hands and gave her a smile of encouragement. Sam gritted her teeth.

"Ready on the count of three?" Doc asked her, holding the whiskey bottle up.

She closed her eyes tightly. "Ready."

"All right. One...two...pour!"

The dark quiet woods reverberated with Sam's loud, intense screams at the burning sensation of the alcohol on her raw skin.

Kai tenderly brushed a loose tendril of blonde hair from Sam's perspiring forehead after Doc Julien had emptied the whiskey bottle on the wounds on her back. She seemed weak and limp now, but Kai thought she certainly had a strong grip on his hands during the disinfection process.

Doc Julien removed the wet table runner from the sofa. "We'll let her wounds air out, and then in about an hour, I'll mix up a salve and apply it to her back and then bandage it up," he announced. "Morro, you got a bedroom in this house? The lady will need a place to maintain her modesty during the bandaging."

"There's two upstairs," Morro answered.

"All right, we'll help her walk upstairs later. Let me take a look at your eye now."

Morro grunted in agreement. "Don't try any funny business while I can't see you, hothead." He wasn't very concerned about Kai escaping, however. He could see, to his annoyance, that the cowboy was focused on Sam right now.

Indeed, Kai was. While the doctor examined Morro's injury, Kai seated himself on the top edge of the sofa's backrest so that he could look down and get a better view of Sam's face and so she could see his face easier from her reclining position. Being within earshot of Morro, they didn't want to converse too much, but the opportunity to simply hold hands was satisfactory enough for them, especially after yesterday when they had thought they'd never have another opportunity ever again.

After Doc Julien had treated Morro's eye and applied a bandage over it, the physician decided that it was time to administer the salve to Sam. At Morro's gunpoint, Kai and the doctor helped Sam walk up the stairs, which was a slow process. After taking her into one bedroom and helping her sit on the edge of the double bed, Kai was then herded into the bedroom across the hall by Morro, who shut the door and jammed a chair under the doorknob. Morro then stood in the doorway of the first bedroom to keep watch over its occupants.

Doc Julien surveyed the room he and Sam were in. A clothes armoire sat along one wall.

"By any chance you got any clothing in that armoire, Morro? Suitable for ladies?"

Morro chuckled. "As a matter of fact, there are a few things in there. Items I've kept on hand as gifts for my various, shall we say, lady friends."

 _Painted ladies_ , Doc thought as he rolled his eyes.

Doc opened the armoire. There were a few dresses hanging from the rod and other items in the drawer. Doc pulled out a chemise.

"You can sleep in this after you're bandaged up," he told Sam.

Doc then set about to mix the salve for Sam's back. Minutes later, it was ready to be applied.

"All right, this bedroom is now a doctor's office," Doc Julien announced. "And we don't need an audience."

And he shut the bedroom door in Morro's face.


	30. Thursday at 2:00 am

Chapter 30 - Thursday at 2:00 am

Hours later, Morro sat in the upstairs hallway of the log house between the two bedrooms, still guarding their occupants as he held on to Ol' Ghostmaker, his firearm. The house was quiet in the dark of the night.

Earlier, when Doc Julien had finished attending to Sam in the first bedroom, Morro had ushered the doctor into the second bedroom where Kai was imprisoned. It had been a long while since Morro had heard noise from either bedroom, so he supposed all the occupants were asleep.

Morro wondered about his next opportunity for sleep. He wouldn't be able to stay awake indefinitely. And once he succumbed to slumber, that pesky sheriff and his posse waiting outside would have no problem overpowering him.

Morro had a feeling that the next 24 hours would not go well for him.

Escaping would be nigh on impossible. His horse was over in the barn. And leaving on foot would make him a easy target for the wild animals who frequented the woods, even in the daytime.

So if he was eventually going to fall into the hands of the posse, he decided there were two things he wanted to do before that happened.

One thing was to kill that hothead cowboy.

Before he did that, however, he wanted to do the other thing even more.

Stake his ultimate claim to Sam. His Emma.

Quietly he opened the door to her room and looked in. In the dim light of the moon shining through the window, he could see she was sleeping on her side, facing toward the door.

He began to set down his firearm on the bedside table. However, because one of his eyes was bandaged, his vision was skewed and he placed the gun down on the edge of the table surface instead of the center area. The gun fell off the edge of the table and on the floor with a clatter.

Sam woke up and saw him.

In the room across the hall, the clatter of the falling gun in the quiet of the night also woke up Kai.

"Morro! What are you doing?!" Sam exclaimed.

At that point, Morro gave up on being quiet. "I said I wanted you to be my Emma, and you're gonna be!" he growled.

Hearing the voices of Sam and Morro in the other bedroom caused Kai to hasten to the door of his own room.

"Kai! Doc! Help!" Sam screamed as Morro removed his holster.

"Sam! We're coming!" Kai hollered back as he violently rattled the doorknob, to no avail. The wooden chair under the doorknob on the hallway side of the door was jamming the door's movement.

By this time, Doc Julien was wide awake. "Doc, Sam's in trouble!" Kai exclaimed as he rattled the doorknob one more time.

"Don't come any closer, Morro!" Kai heard Sam warn the villain, causing the cowboy to become even more alarmed than he already was. Sam wasn't able to defend herself with her back being injured.

"Doc, we're gonna have to bust the door open together! You with me?" Kai asked.

"You bet!" Doc responded.

"All right, let's stand a few feet away, then on the count of three, we shoulder the door," Kai instructed. He took a deep breath as they quickly positioned themselves. "Ready? One...two...three!" As hard as they could, they butted the door with their shoulders.

The loud noise of cracking wood rewarded their efforts. The wooden chair which had been jamming the doorknob was now broken, allowing their bedroom door to swing wide open. Kai could now see across the hall into the other bedroom. Morro had just flung Sam's blankets aside. Kai could see terror on Sam's face.

The cowboy and his foe looked at each other. Kai saw Morro glance at a spot on the floor for a split second, then look back at Kai. Kai looked at the spot where Morro had just looked.

It was the spot where the gun lay on the floor.

Both men dove for the gun at the same time. Doc Julien rushed over to Sam to shield her from harm.

Morro was closer to the gun but his vision was a problem, so though he grabbed the gun first, he was only a second earlier than Kai. Kai took a hold of Morro's wrist in an attempt to shake the gun out of the madman's hand. The gun once again fell to the floor, but this time, it discharged.

Sam screamed.

Fortunately, the bullet sailed away without hitting anyone.

Kai reached for the gun but Morro kicked it into the hallway, out of his reach. Morro then punched Kai in the jaw, causing Kai to stagger, but he remained upright. Both men scrambled to the hallway to be the first to retrieve the firearm.

Doc Julien then quickly went to the bedroom window, flinging it open and yelling, "Sheriff! Come quick! We need you!"

In the hallway, the men tussled, neither one getting a good chance at possessing the gun. Finally Kai had a chance to kick it down the stairs, where at least it would be out of reach of either of them. Then he punched Morro in the gut when they were at the top of the stairs. However, Morro took a hold of Kai's coat as he fell, thus causing both of them to tumble down the stairway.

At the bottom of the stairs, each of them landed a few feet on either side of the firearm. Morro sat up to catch his breath. Kai had the wind knocked out of him and remained inert.

Just then, Sheriff Lloyd burst into the house with the Garmadon Ranch cowboys right behind him.


	31. The Confrontation

CHAPTER 31 - The Confrontation

"The jig is up, Morro," Lloyd said, aiming his weapon at his adversary as he stepped over the broken parlor chair which, seconds earlier, had prevented the front door from opening until he and the cowboys burst through.

"Well, if it isn't Sheriff Lloyd. Nice bullet hole in your hat. Still mad about what happened on Sunday?" Morro jeered.

Kai stirred, beginning to recover from the tumble down the stairway.

"Surrender peacefully, Morro," Lloyd commanded. "You're taking a little trip back to Ninjago Town."

"There's one little problem, Sheriff. You can't make me go back with you. In case you didn't know, you have no authority in Skeleton Territory."

Out of the corner of his eye, Lloyd noticed movement at the top of the stairs. Doc Julien had quietly appeared to observe what was going on.

Lloyd redirected his attention toward the villain. "Yes, I know I have no jurisdiction here, Morro, but you've committed enough crimes right here in Skeleton Territory to get tossed in the pokey. Unlawful restraint, for one. I would think you'd prefer to spend time in a Ninjago Town jail rather than a Skeleton jail. The only rats in my jail cell are the prisoners. By the way, what happened to your eye?"

Lloyd became aware of more activity at the top of the stairs. Sam had appeared and stood just behind the doctor. She was holding up a blanket against her chemise at shoulder height, and the blanket dangled down to her feet.

"That little vixen shoved a lit candle in my eye," Morro explained. "It hurts like the dickens."

Kai sat up and rubbed his head.

Lloyd narrowed his eyes. "You deserve a thousand times worse than a candle for all the crimes you've done, Morro."

"Oh, you mean like murder your daddy?" Morro chuckled.

This time, Lloyd's eyes widened.

"Yes, I suppose that was one of the more heinous crimes I've committed," Morro smiled. "You should know that he showed fear when I put the barrel of Ol' Ghostmaker to his forehead."

Lloyd gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the insinuation that his daddy was a coward. "So you're confessing?"

"I am," Morro grinned. "But you can't do anything about it because we're not in Ninjago Town!"

Kai looked at Morro and suddenly realized that in the dim light, the villain had slowly been edging his way toward his gun. Kai lunged toward the weapon, but Morro reached it first.

Sam screamed.

In a flash, Morro pointed his gun at Kai and fired. The bullet missed.

Lloyd pointed his gun at Morro and fired. The bullet did not miss.

Morro froze for several seconds. Ol' Ghostmaker dropped from his grasp. Morro's eyes closed as he fell backward onto the floor. He was still.

Doc Julien rushed down the stairs. He knelt by Morro and checked his vital signs.

"Morro's dead," he announced as he stood up again.

Kai rose up and joined the other men as they stood around the body of Morro. All were quiet. No one wanted to say anything until Lloyd said something.

Lloyd stood there tightlipped, running his fingers through his hair, looking at the dead man. Suddenly he said, "I'll be back in a little while," and went outside to walk around. The others figured he needed time to process the end of a journey that had consumed him ever since that day when he was a young whippersnapper and his daddy's body had been brought to Garmadon Ranch after having been found on the bank of the Ninjago River.

After Lloyd left, the younger men remained standing around, still not sure of how to acknowledge the passing of the villain. Doc Julien, sensing this, spoke up and said, "May God have mercy on his soul," and that seemed to suffice.

Then Doc said, "I should go find something to cover him until we can take care of him in the daylight."

"And we'll go collect our horses and put them in the barn for the night," Cole said, motioning to Zane and Jay. When the posse had arrived earlier that evening, they had tied the horses a short distance down the mountain and sneaked up to the house on foot, intending for their presence to be a surprise to the now-deceased kidnapper.

"And maybe we'll do something about Archer. Or maybe not," Jay piped up as they headed out the door.

Doc headed upstairs to retrieve a blanket. Kai followed him up the stairs but stopped on the second-to-top stair while Doc went on to pass by Sam, who was standing on the top stair. Kai and Sam now faced each other, eye to eye.

"You all right, Sam?" he asked. Even in the dim light, he could see that her face was pale.

Sam nodded. "How about you?"

"I'm fine," he responded.

"Too bad he didn't live a better life," she commented.

"I agree," Kai said. "At least he can't hurt us anymore."

Doc held a blanket as he exited the room in which he and Kai had been imprisoned a short while ago. "Excuse me," he apologized as he brushed past the couple on his way back down the stairs.

Sam cast aside the blanket she had been holding against her chemise. Her hands were now free to gently cup her cowboy's face, which sported a bruise from Morro's punch along with several days' growth of a beard. She guided his face toward hers, her lips finding his. She reveled in his scent - part fresh air, part mesquite campfire.

Not wanting to slide his arms around her waist for fear of aggravating her back injury, Kai instead encircled her shoulders and pulled her tightly against him, grateful to be holding her once again.

As his lips explored hers, he was glad that the light was dim so that she could not see him blush. He realized that the flimsy cotton fabric of her chemise was the only separation between her sensuous body and his hands.

There were three words he desperately wanted to say to her right then, but he decided to wait. Tonight, having been spoiled by injury and death, was not the right time.


	32. Thursday

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Thanks to the nearly 600 visitors to this story as of the end of September 2015!**

 **A special howdy to my followers and "favoriters" and my posse of commenters: FirstFandomFangirl, Kairocksrainbow, Kai's Girlfriend, MMM, ElvenPrincess, and 1234.**

 **I'm still waiting for measuremesky, my family member, to post a comment (hint hint, girl!), but she is busy at a new school this autumn, so I understand that she is preoccupied.**

 **By the way, measuremesky has not forgotten about her own story, The Fire Within, which is a great story on this website that I highly recommend reading, if you have not already done so. But it may be several more weeks before she has the chance to update it.**

 **As for my story...**

 **Morro may have died in the last chapter, but there's still plenty of action left.**

 **For one thing, there's still a fire within a Ninjago cowboy!**

 **And the final chapter, which is still a few chapters away, will hold a surprise!**

* * *

Chapter 32 - Thursday

Lloyd decided that the group should spend the entire day of Thursday just staying put at Morro's house, for several reasons.

Doc Julien thought Sam's injury would get some good healing time during a day of quiet rest.

The horses needed some down time before the three-day trek back to Ninjago Town.

And it would be good for the men to rest as well. Before they were able to do that, however, they had to take care of some business.

The first order of business was to release their involuntary guest. Archer was an unscrupulous, disagreeable man to be around, but the information he had provided was accurate and had led to the rescue of the kidnapped couple. Lloyd, therefore, decided to send him and his horse on their way after giving him back his gun and providing him with a few supplies from Morro's house. Archer did not say where he might go, and Lloyd did not ask.

The group also had to bury Morro. Cole and Zane began digging a grave next to a tall pine behind the house, while Kai and Jay set out to build a simple wooden coffin. Lloyd was going to work on creating a grave marker. Since no one knew the date of Morro's birth, Lloyd went into his office room to search for that information.

As Kai and Jay measured, sawed, and hammered wooden boards in the barn, the topic of conversation turned toward women. Specifically, their women.

"Jay, you should just ask Nya to marry you and not worry about giving her an expensive ring," Kai told him in between taps of the hammer. "Life's too short to worry about silly stuff like that. The past few days have taught me that."

"I hear ya, pardner. Being on the trail so much these few days has given me lots of time to consider things," Jay replied as he handed Kai another nail, "and I've pretty much come around to your way of thinking. After nearly two years of courting, Nya probably wouldn't care if I gave her a doorknocker to wear on her finger."

The cowboys laughed.

"I didn't have any ring at all when I tried to propose to Sam in our jail cell," Kai said, hammering some more. "She didn't let me ask her, though, 'cause she wanted to wait until we were in better circumstances."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! This is new information, Romeo," Jay exclaimed, taking hold of the hammer in Kai's hand.

Then a grin spread across his face. "Did this happen before or after you tickled her?"

Kai's face reddened as Jay chuckled. The tickle comment made by the brunette cowboy while he hallucinated on Tuesday night had earned him a lot of ribbing from his companions.

"Anyway," Jay went on, letting go of the hammer, "I can see why she wanted better circumstances. So have you decided when and where you'll finally ask Sam?" He handed Kai another nail. "When I ask Nya, I'm going to take her to that sandy spot on the river where it bends to the west. We'll have a picnic supper and watch the sunset. I think we'll do this on the Sunday following the day we get back, as long as the weather's good."

Kai considered his possibilities as he hammered again. "Maybe I'll take Sam to Sunset Point. On that same Sunday. Since she arrived in Ninjago Town only last week, she hasn't had much of an opportunity to see the beautiful countryside we have in Ninjago. Up on Sunset Point, she can get a bird's-eye view."

As Kai finished tapping in the nail he was hammering, Jay put his hand on his friend's shoulder, causing the brown-eyed cowboy to look up at him.

"Kai, don't get me wrong," Jay said. "I believe in love at first sight, and Sam certainly seems like a great gal. It's just that you haven't even known her a week. And it hasn't been that long since Skylor left. Are you absolutely, positively sure Sam's the one for you?"

"Jay, I've never been more sure of anything."

* * *

The sheriff and the cowboys finished their designated tasks in the late morning. At that point, Sam felt like she could tolerate some extended time of standing up, so with the help of Doc Julien, she carefully donned garments from the armoire and joined the men.

Doc Julien led the group in a short, improvised funeral for Morro. They stood around the closed coffin, which had already been placed by Cole and Zane in its final resting spot in the ground.

Doc started out with some brief words of prayer. He next extended an invitation to anyone to say a few words. Everyone kind of expected Lloyd to speak, and he did.

"I guess I knew Morro longer than any of you. When I first knew him, he was a scoundrel. And he stayed a scoundrel to the end. And though I'm a lawman, and the reason I shot him was in defense of my friend, a part of me deep down in my soul is glad that I avenged my daddy's murder. And now today this rogue and his weapon will disappear from the face of the earth."

He tossed Morro's gun, Ol' Ghostmaker, in the grave on top of the coffin.

"I'm done talking now," he said in conclusion.

No one else wanted to speak, so Doc Julien said a quick concluding prayer. Then Cole, Zane, and Lloyd filled the grave with dirt while the doctor, Jay, Kai, and Sam headed into the house. It was time to prepare the midday meal.

* * *

Now that the pall of danger had disappeared, the atmosphere among the group began to lighten up. Despite the injuries sustained by Kai and Sam, they all were healthy and were going to head back to home sweet home in the morning.

"I don't know what to do with the chickens in the henhouse," Lloyd announced as the group sat eating their meal.

"I recommend a molasses barbecue sauce," Cole smirked.

"Molasses is good for beef, but we're talking poultry here," Kai corrected him. "A fruit-based sauce is better."

Lloyd rolled his eyes at the barbecue sauce banter. "Obviously we can't take the birds with us. Do you have any idea how they got here in the first place, Sam?"

"A man named Wrayth took care of stocking the henhouse. He lives at the foot of the mountain. Morro hired him to freshen up this house whenever he'd come to visit," she answered.

"Wrayth must be the one who lived in that gray shack," Lloyd guessed. "We'll stop by tomorrow on our way off the mountain and tell him to come get the fowl."

"Who do you suppose is going to inherit this house?" Zane wondered.

"When I was searching for Morro's birth date in his office, I came across a copy of his will," Lloyd said. "If his lawyer ends up verifying that this will is the most current, then there is one person who is getting everything he owned."

"Who's that?" Jay asked.

"Bansha."

The men expressed surprise, but Sam knew exactly why Morro had designated Bansha as his beneficiary, thanks to her supper conversation with him last night. She asked Kai to retrieve the framed photograph of Emma from the parlor, and then she relayed the story of Bansha's association with Morro while the men passed the picture around the table.

"Whoa, Sam, the likeness between you and this girl is incredible," Jay exclaimed.

When they were done looking at the photograph, Sam did not ask Kai to return it to the parlor. She planned to bring it back to Ninjago Town with her and give it to Bansha.


	33. Second Sunday

Chapter 33 - Second Sunday

During the group's three-day trek back to Ninjago Town, Kai and Sam rode Morro's horse. Kai was the main rider, but upon Sam's request, he gave her some lessons in controlling the reins as they traveled the trail.

Though Sam didn't say this out loud to Kai, she was looking forward to becoming the wife of a cowboy, and so she wanted to know something about riding a horse.

And though Kai didn't say this out loud to Sam, he was happy she wanted to know something about riding a horse, for to him it meant she was still interested in becoming the wife of a cowboy.

It was Sunday at about four o'clock in the afternoon when the weary travelers finally made it back to Garmadon Ranch. They were going to inform Mr. Wu of their return and apprise him of what had happened during the past few days. Then, in the case of the cowboys, the journey would ultimately end at the bunkhouse about a mile away, where the ranch hands could freshen up, shave, and finally sleep in their own beds for the first time in a week.

Cole was cranky as well as tired. Zane had reminded the group that the church bake sale was scheduled to have taken place earlier that day, so Cole had missed out on buying some baked goods.

As the group rode on a stone driveway past an expanse of lawn, Kai pointed up ahead at the stately two-story red brick mansion surrounded by well-groomed landscaping.

"This is the main house where Mr. Wu lives, and his housekeeper, too. Her name is Miss Gayle. She's been at Garmadon Ranch for a dozen years or so," he explained to Sam. "She's a bit of a gossip."

The group rode around to the back of the house to tie up the horses while they visited. Miss Gayle was busy collecting some dishtowels from the clothesline when she saw them.

"Yerra! Sure as the hair on me head be gray, it's me lads!" they heard her exclaim. They saw her run inside the back door of the house as she hollered to Mr. Wu to notify him of the arrival of the group.

She ran back outside with a wide smile on her face to greet them as they were dismounting.

"Failte, lads!" she said in welcoming them, her vocabulary reflecting the language of the faraway land of her birth. "Ye be lookin' a bit scruffy, but still a fine sight!"

"Howdy, Miss Gayle," the cowboys and the sheriff said as they dismounted their horses and endured bone-crushing embraces from the short, plump housekeeper.

"And of course I wouldn't be forgettin' ye, Doc!" she told Doc Julien as he received a hug, too.

Miss Gayle's attention then turned to Sam as Kai was carefully taking her off the horse.

"Kai, she be your mot?" she asked.

Kai grinned. Sam was indeed his girlfriend. "Yes, Miss Gayle, this here is Samantha Borg. Sam, this is Miss Gayle."

"Failte, lassie! And what a fair lass ye be, me dear," Miss Gayle said as she smiled at Sam.

"Thank you. I'm happy to meet you, Miss Gayle. Please call me Sam," Sam replied as she smiled back.

Miss Gayle looked at the couple. "And who, might I be askin', was the winner of the tickle fight that Miss Bansha told me about?"

As everyone else laughed, the faces of Kai and Sam reddened as they realized that Bansha had been awake when they thought she was asleep last Monday night in the Noscut hotel room.

Mr. Wu came out of the house and greeted the kidnap victims and their rescuers. He was ecstatic to learn that his ranch hand and the saloon girl were safe. Kai formally introduced Sam to his boss.

After they had exchanged quick pleasantries, Mr. Wu happened to glance in the direction of the horses. The coal-black gelding caught his eye.

He addressed Lloyd. "Nephew, that's Morro's horse over there."

"Morro's dead, Uncle," Lloyd explained. "He was trying to kill Kai, so I shot him. But right before that, he confessed to..." Lloyd cleared his throat, trying to speak further.

"I know what you mean," Mr. Wu put his hand on his nephew's shoulder in recognition of the significance of the villain's death to the Garmadon family. After a pause, the ranch owner asked, "When are you going to tell your mother?"

Misako, Lloyd's mother, operated a tea emporium in Ninjago Town and lived on the second floor over the shop. Right after her husband's murder ten years ago, she had taken her young son and moved into town and away from the ranch to escape the pain of missing the man she had loved so much. She had sold the ranch to Mr. Wu, her husband's brother.

"Tonight I'll tell her," the sheriff answered, "after I stop by the jail to find out from Dareth what's been going on in Ninjago Town since last week."

Mr. Wu gave Lloyd's shoulder a pat. "Perhaps Ninjago Town can now turn the page to a sunnier chapter in its history," he said.

Mr. Wu then turned to the housekeeper. "Miss Gayle, would you be so kind as to bring out some refreshments for our weary travelers? We can sit at the picnic table and enjoy them and this nice weather we're having today."

"Comin' right up, after I be givin' a quick check on Miss Bansha," Miss Gayle responded.

"Thank you, Miss Gayle," Mr. Wu said as he nodded at her. Then he turned to Doc Julien. "Perhaps, good doctor, after you've had some refreshment, you could take a look at Bansha?" he inquired. "She's in the first-floor bedroom. Miss Gayle has been taking excellent care of her, even staying here yesterday and today when she didn't have to, but Bansha's condition has not improved."

"I will certainly do so," Doc Julien replied.

"Oh." Miss Gayle had taken a few steps toward the house but suddenly turned around. "Will I be servin' those cakes ye bought at the church bake sale today?" she asked Mr. Wu.

"That would be perfect."

When he learned he'd be enjoying a slice of his favorite dessert in the near future, Cole's crankiness disappeared.


	34. Second Sunday in Late Afternoon

CHAPTER 34 - Second Sunday in Late Afternoon

The group sat around a large picnic table located a few dozen yards away from the main house in a grove of tall oak trees. Miss Gayle brought out lemonade and several cakes of different kinds.

"I could not be believin' what me ears heard from Miss Nya about what happened last Sunday, with Morro stealin' Miss Sam and Kai like a thief might steal a loaf of bread," the housekeeper recounted as she served the refreshments. She glanced at Jay as she mentioned the name of his favorite saloon girl.

Miss Gayle went on. "Well, first I should be lettin' Miss Sam know that Sundays are usually me days off, so I go to me sister's farm an hour away, near Hibiscus Falls. But when I came back here to work last Monday mornin', me heart just about stopped beatin', for I could tell not a soul had been floatin' around since the day before. I went to find Bo - he be the gardener who lives on a far parcel of Garmadon Ranch, Miss Sam - but he knew nary a thing so off to town I went, and Miss Nya be the first one I run into."

"How was Miss Nya doing, by the way?" Jay inquired, anxious to hear more about the raven-haired beauty.

"Yer mot be waitin' fer her man," Miss Gayle replied with a grin, making Jay blush.

Miss Gayle continued. "So I be rattlin' around this empty house like a ghost until Mr. Wu showed up with Miss Bansha, poor thing. Since she got here, I been tryin' to make her comfortable, and we been passin' the time sharin' stories of this and that" - she shot a knowing look at Kai and Sam - "but the dear isn't regainin' her strength. I been so worried that I even stayed here today on me day off. So glad ye be back, Doc," she said as she nodded at the physician.

Miss Gayle took a breath. "Do tell yer tales of the past week," she urged the travelers.

As the journeyers ate and drank, they told Mr. Wu and Miss Gayle what had transpired since last Tuesday, the day the ranch owner had left the posse to bring the ailing Bansha back to Garmadon Ranch.

Miss Gayle's eyes grew wide as she heard the tales. Tales of Morro's brutality and near-brutality. She had silently questioned where the fading cluster of bruises on Sam's neck came from, and now she had her answer. She knew Kai was too much of an honorable gentleman to have done such a thing to Sam.

"Morro, that sleeveen," Miss Gayle spat out in contempt as she heard the story of his final minutes. "He got what he be deservin'. He be deservin' it for ten years after what he did to poor Mr. Garmadon."

It occurred to Kai that even though Bansha was an accomplice in last week's kidnapping, no one at the table - not even himself - had any harsh words for her. Kai himself had stopped thinking of her as a foe after their awkward meal last Monday, realizing that the ultimate intent behind all her rather prying questions was to protect Sam, who apparently seemed like a daughter to the old woman. The others probably decided to overlook Bansha's transgression due to a combination of her advanced age, ill health, and her recently revealed tragic past.

Kai did not feel so benevolent toward Archer. Though that dirty dog successfully led them to Sam, Kai still was as irritated as a teased snake about being threatened by Archer's knife, targeted by Archer's insults, and knocked unconscious by Archer's gun. And his vulgar talk to Sam.

Doc Julien poured himself a second glass of lemonade. Holding it in one hand and his black bag in the other, he stood up and excused himself to go inside to see Bansha.

"Hey, Doc, if you tell Bansha she just inherited a fortune, she might feel better immediately. I know I would!" Jay joked. "Morro left everything to her in his will," he explained to Mr. Wu and Miss Gayle.

For a second, Mr. Wu's face turned pale, but he quickly recovered.

"I found a copy of his will in his office," Lloyd clarified. "We still need to have a lawyer verify its validity."

As the group conversed, the physician paused by Sam's seat on his way into the house and bent low to speak in her ear. "You should decide about your living arrangements for the next week, because I don't think you're ready to live by yourself just yet. Even though I can be the one to apply your salve and change your bandages each morning and evening if I need to, you'll still need help sitting down and standing up throughout the day."

Sam nodded solemnly at him as he walked away and headed inside.

Though Kai sat right next to her, he could not clearly hear what the doctor had said to her while standing on her opposite side, just something about living arrangements. "What did Doc say?" he asked her in a low voice.

"He said I shouldn't live alone for the next week," she explained, her voice also low.

"What do you think you'll do?"

"Not sure. I haven't been in Ninjago Town long enough to get to know anyone well enough to impose on them like that."

A voice of a housekeeper interrupted them.

"Well, stay out here in the country, then, where ye be knowin' lots of friends!" Miss Gayle exclaimed. "Pardon me bein' nosy, but if ye were to stay here a week, I could keep an eye on ye and ye could help me keep an eye on Miss Bansha."

By this time the others had stopped talking and were staring at the two women and Kai.

Miss Gayle grinned sheepishly at her boss. "Of course, Mr. Wu would need to be givin' his permission first."

Mr. Wu pretended to glare at her but his face quickly broke into a smile. "Of course you can stay, Sam. Miss Gayle's idea is a fine one."

"Thank you, Mr. Wu," Sam beamed. "And you, too, Miss Gayle. I appreciate it."

Mr. Wu turned to his grinning brown-haired ranch hand with one eyebrow raised. "This doesn't mean, though, that a certain ranch hand can visit the main house anytime he wants. There's plenty of work to do to keep all you boys occupied, especially since you've been gone a whole week."

"But on Thursday night, you boys can come up here to the main house for supper."

Mr. Wu's invitation was greeted with enthusiastic cheers by his employees. Eating supper elsewhere besides the bunkhouse was always a special treat.

"In fact," he mused as he stroked his beard, "we'll turn it into a little supper party to celebrate the safe return of all of you, including you, Nephew. Be sure to invite Deputy Dareth, too, when you see him tonight. After all, he was with us on that first day. Bring your mother as well. And I'll speak with the doctor about joining us, once he has finished attending to Bansha," he said. Mr. Wu felt pretty sure that Doc Julien would make it a point to attend the supper if Misako was going to be there.

"Of course, Miss Gayle needs to give her permission first," Mr. Wu smiled, partially mocking what Miss Gayle had said just a minute earlier. But he was also partially serious. Since the main preparation work for the supper would fall on her shoulders, he wanted to make sure she was agreeable to bearing the responsibility.

Miss Gayle recognized he was mocking her in a jovial way, so she pretended to glare at him, but her face quickly broke into a smile. "Of course we can have a supper party. But we need to be invitin' one more person."

"Certainly. Who would that be?"

"Miss Nya."

Jay gave the housekeeper a wide grin of appreciation for including his woman on the guest list.


	35. Second Sunday Before Supper

Chapter 35 - Second Sunday Before Supper

As for tonight's supper, Mr. Wu invited the group to stay at the main house and eat an informal light meal outdoors on the picnic table.

While it was being prepared, Kai was asked by Miss Gayle to ride into town to Sam's room at the saloon to collect some items for her week's stay at the ranch. Sam hadn't wanted him or any of the others to do it. It meant spending yet another hour or so on a horse, after all the riding they had just done, so she was prepared to spend another night without her own dressing and grooming items. But Miss Gayle went ahead and asked Kai. He gladly agreed and was rewarded with a look of gratefulness from Sam's eyes - and a kiss from her lips when Miss Gayle wasn't looking.

Ideally, Kai would have liked to ride Flame, his own horse, for he had not ridden his gelding in a week. He had been told that Nya had boarded the chestnut animal at the livery stable after the posse left Ninjago Town, and Mr. Wu had retrieved the horse upon his return, housing the equine in the stable of the main house.

Kai opted to ride Morro's horse for this errand, however, for Morro's horse was already saddled, and this was not a leisurely trip, anyway. The timing of the serving of supper was contingent upon the return of Kai.

And Jay.

Jay accompanied Kai to the saloon, for he wanted to personally extend the supper party invitation to Nya, as well as an additional invitation to stay at the main house as an overnight guest on Tuesday night and Wednesday night. Miss Gayle had suggested this to Mr. Wu, for she guessed Nya was at loose ends, now that the saloon had been closed for a week and seemingly would remain so for the foreseeable future. Miss Gayle figured she could pick up Nya from town on Tuesday after her weekly shopping for supplies, and then Nya could enjoy being in the company of the women at the ranch while helping with the supper party preparations. Mr. Wu had agreed to Miss Gayle's idea but had raised his eyebrow at Jay and reminded him about ranch hands not visiting the main house anytime they wanted.

Now, upon reaching the second floor balcony of the quiet Morro Saloon, Jay watched as Kai successfully picked the door lock of Sam's room with a small tool which Sheriff Lloyd had loaned him, since Sam's key had been left behind in her room a week ago. Once Kai was able to enter, Jay knocked on the door of the next room over.

As Kai stood in the middle of Sam's room, he heard Nya's voice scream "Jay!" when the door of the next room opened. Kai listened for further talking but now there was only silence next door. He didn't recall Jay ever admitting that he had kissed the raven-haired saloon girl before, but it was a pretty good bet that's what they were doing now.

Kai looked around Sam's room. He spotted the room key on Sam's writing table and temporarily stored it in his pocket.

He examined the other items on her writing table. It held a framed photograph of Sam in a fancy dress standing next to a nicely dressed older man who was seated. Sam and the man had the same eyes, as well as the same look of kindness in their eyes. Kai could tell that the man was her father, the late Cyrus Borg. Even though the photograph was not specifically mentioned among the list of things Kai needed to gather, he thought Sam might like to have it close at hand, so he put it in the knapsack he had brought to transport her items.

Also on the writing table, Kai saw some of Sam's personal stationery - pink colored paper with "Samantha Rose Borg" displayed in silver script lettering across the top.

 _So her middle name is Rose. I like that name_ , he thought. _Good thing she doesn't have much of that stationery left. She's gonna have a new last name soon, I hope!_

After packing three dresses, a bottle of perfume containing that wonderful strawberry scent, her hairbrush, a pair of earrings, the white robe she had worn on the night she first kissed his cheek in the livery stable, and some unmentionables that he quickly stuffed in the knapsack, he was finished.

He exited the room, locked the door, and added the key to the knapsack. The door to Nya's room was open a crack. Kai simply knocked on it and loudly announced, "Jay, I'll meet you by the horses so we can get back for supper." Then he turned to leave the balcony, hoping Jay would not dally too much. They still had a 45-minute ride back to the ranch.

"Kai!" Nya called out. Kai turned around to see Nya come out onto the balcony, one of her hands holding Jay's. Her other hand held Kai's hat.

"Welcome back!" she said as she let go of Jay's hand to hug Kai. "I'm so glad you're safe! And Sam, too!"

He smiled as he hugged her back. "Thanks! I'm glad to see you again!"

She handed him the hat. "You left this at the church," she told him. He grinned as he put it on his head for the first time in a week.

"Thanks, Nya!" he said. He thought about saying he missed having it when he had been abandoned in the desert, but he didn't feel like bringing up the awful subject at that moment. Instead, he asked, "Are you coming to the supper party?"

"I wouldn't miss it for anything!" she declared, turning her gaze to Jay for a second as she resumed holding the auburn-haired cowboy's hand. She looked again at Kai and said, "I can't wait to see Sam again! Tell her I say howdy and I'll see her on Tuesday when Miss Gayle comes to take me to the ranch!"

"Will do. See you later this week!" Kai tipped his newly returned hat to her. Before he turned to go back downstairs, he gave Jay a look that said _I know you're gonna kiss her now!_

A tinge of pink crept across Jay's cheeks. "I'll be down in a minute," he said.

* * *

A little while later, as the young men rode back to Garmadon Ranch, the brown-haired cowboy asked, "So, Jay, is this the night we speak to Mr. Wu about our plans to propose marriage to our women next Sunday?"

"You bet!" Jay grinned. "We're gonna speak to him first thing after supper!"


	36. Second Sunday After Supper

Chapter 36 - Second Sunday After Supper

While Kai and Jay were attending to their errand in town, Sam assisted Miss Gayle in preparing the Sunday supper. Sam felt embarrassed about her lack of kitchen skills. A cook had prepared all the meals in her well-to-do household while she was growing up, and at the time she simply had no inclination to learn. Now, however, she was dismayed over her culinary inexperience, for she hoped she would soon be a wife who could prepare decent meals for herself and her husband, and it was a bit intimidating that Kai's knowledge of food seemed somewhat advanced, based on his fruit sauce comment back at Morro's house.

Though Sam did not share her thoughts with Miss Gayle, the astute housekeeper could guess what was going on in her mind. Miss Gayle patted her shoulder and assured her that by the end of the week, Sam would be able to prepare several meals and desserts with the cooking lessons she would learn from Miss Gayle. Tonight, Sam would learn how to chop vegetables.

After supper, the men profusely thanked Miss Gayle and her assistant Sam for the meal. Then Cole and Zane headed to the bunkhouse, but not before each received a hug and a kiss on the cheek from Sam, who thanked them for their help in rescuing her. Sam did the same for Lloyd before he left to head to Ninjago Town. Doc Julien and Kai and Jay were still at the main house. Doc Julien went to check on Bansha. The two cowboys and Mr. Wu had disappeared into the ranch owner's office room and closed the door behind them after Kai told her they had some old business they needed to finish up.

Sam helped Miss Gayle - as best she could, given her back injury - to clear the dishes from the picnic table and store the leftover food items in their proper place. Miss Gayle suggested to Sam that before they wash the dishes, they spend a few minutes saying howdy to Bansha. Sam agreed. She could give to Bansha the small wrapped package that had traveled with the group from the log house in the Stone Mountains.

The last time Sam had seen Bansha, the sickly older woman was being put on Archer's horse by Morro and Archer early last Tuesday in Noscut. Sam had been watching them as she sat on Morro's horse, bound and gagged.

When Sam and Miss Gayle stood at the doorway of the first-floor bedroom, which Sam would be sharing with Bansha due to it being large enough to hold two twin beds, they saw that Bansha's eyes were closed as she lay on one of the beds. Doc Julien was standing over his black bag on her bedside table, measuring out some liquid medicine. He silently nodded to the ladies, giving them permission to enter, and he motioned for Sam to sit in the wooden chair he had pulled up to Bansha's bedside.

"Bansha, let's have some medicine, and then you can visit with your guests who have just arrived," Doc Julien said to the frail woman as Miss Gayle helped Sam to sit down. The housekeeper then went over to Bansha and lifted her head up as the physician administered the liquid. The patient's eyes remained closed.

When the medicine was gone, Miss Gayle went to stand behind Sam's chair. The doctor gestured to the younger woman, indicating it was all right for her to speak.

"Bansha? Bansha, it's Sam. Er, I mean, it's Missy. How are you?" Sam asked quietly.

Bansha's eyes fluttered open. She stared at Sam.

"Oh, Missy, you came home," Bansha said in a groggy voice, her hand searching for Sam's. Sam took the old woman's hand in hers as Bansha asked, "Did yer feller come home, too?"

"Yes, he did," Sam smiled.

"Good," Bansha said as she weakly squeezed Sam's hand.

Then Sam noticed a tear on Bansha's cheek. "What's the matter, Bansha?" Sam asked in alarm. "Are you in pain?" Doc Julien turned around from what he had been doing to see what was happening with his patient.

"Oh, Missy, can you and yer feller ever forgive me for what I did to ya? I didn't know Morro was gonna be like he was."

Listening to the sincerity in the voice of the ill septuagenarian caused a lump to form in Sam's throat.

"Everything's all right now, Bansha," Sam tried to assure her. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she softly said, "I forgive you."

"I forgive you, too, Bansha," said a young male's voice, startling everyone in the room.

It was Kai. He walked in and placed his hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam looked up at him with watery eyes.

To distract herself, Sam said, "I brought something for you, Bansha." She asked Kai to retrieve the package which sat on Sam's bedside table, wrapped in plain brown paper.

Sam unwrapped the package and held the framed photograph close to the old woman's eyes.

Bansha's eyes widened with recognition as she whispered, "Emma!"

Tears began to stream down her face. "My baby girl! It's so good to see her face! Where did ya get this photograph?"

"It came from Morro's house in Skeleton Territory," Sam answered.

Bansha looked at her visitors. "Morro's dead, ain't he," she stated.

They looked at each other, not knowing how to respond. "Yes," Doc finally answered.

Bansha showed no emotion at the news as she turned her attention back to the photograph.

After a minute of silence on Bansha's part, Sam thought it would be best to leave her be. Kai helped Sam to her feet. But before they said goodbye, Bansha set down the photograph, looked up at Sam, and said, "Give me yer hand, Missy."

Sam complied.

Bansha squeezed her hand. "I hope ya have a daughter that gives ya as much joy as my daughter gave me."

Sam's throat once again tightened with emotion upon hearing the beautiful sentiment. "Thank you, Bansha," she said to the old woman, blinking back tears as she turned to leave.

"And sonny, I got one thing to say to ya."

Kai leaned forward to listen. "What's that?"

"Always treat her good, y'hear?"

Kai smiled at the repeat of the advice she had given him last Monday while she had pointed a steak knife at him. "I will, Bansha," he said, tipping his hat to her before he put his hand on Sam's shoulder to guide her out of the bedroom.

He looked back over his shoulder at Miss Gayle and the doctor and said with a wry smile, "Pardon the expression, but I'm kidnapping Sam for a few minutes to say goodbye."

Doc Julien chuckled. "All right, as long as it's just a few minutes. I need to show Miss Gayle how to tend to Sam's back."

"And she need be helpin' me with the dishes!" Miss Gayle called out.

* * *

Outside the back door of the main house of Garmadon Ranch, Kai was carefully holding his woman in his arms for a few more minutes, knowing he would soon be returning to the bunkhouse without her.

It would be strange not to have her within his reach tonight. Aside from that awful night after Morro had abandoned him in the desert, Kai and Sam had spent at least some time together between each sundown and sunup during the past week. After she had injured her back, he had slept on the floor by her bed while at Morro's house. On the trail home, she slept in a small tent purchased in Qubla, but she rested her head outside the tent so that they could talk until they fell asleep under the stars.

Now that Kai and Jay had spoken with Mr. Wu about a certain subject, it was time to put into action the next step of Kai's plan for making sure he and Sam spent the rest of their nights on earth together, starting on a night about two weeks from tonight.

"After church next Sunday, would you like to do a little sightseeing around the Ninjago Town area?" he asked her. "You haven't had a chance to see much of the pretty countryside we have around here."

Kai's brown eyes had an extra twinkle in them which made Sam suspect that next Sunday he might be asking her a certain question. But she hid her suspicion, and her excitement, and simply smiled.

"That sounds like a lovely idea," she replied.

"Good." Kai gave her a kiss and then looked up at the darkening twilight sky above. "Guess I'd better go. Mr. Wu's expecting us to get up before sunrise tomorrow and put in a full day's work."

Sam laughed. Mr. Wu did seem like quite the taskmaster.

"I guess the next time we see each other will be at supper on Thursday," she said to him. "Miss Gayle said she's going to teach me how to bake a pie and we'll serve it for dessert."

Kai smacked his lips. "Mmm! I'll be sure to bring my appetite!"

Their hands intertwined, they walked over to where Flame stood, waiting for his rider. Kai had already settled Morro's horse in the main house's stable and retrieved his own mount.

"So this is your horse?" Sam asked.

"Yep. Flame, say howdy to Sam."

Sam laughed as she petted the horse's nose. "Howdy back, Flame!"

Kai tilted his head and studied his animal for a few seconds. "Flame likes you," he concluded with a smile.

The couple's joviality subsided as the inevitability of Kai's departure could no longer be delayed.

Sam turned to her cowboy. "Kai?" she said, intertwining his other hand in hers.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For everything."

"Not exactly sure what you need to thank me for, but the pleasure's all mine." He gave her one last kiss and smiled at her as he mounted his horse. She waved as he rode away to the bunkhouse, tipping his hat to her in farewell.

Miss Gayle smiled as she secretly watched them from the window.

* * *

Hours later, during the night, Bansha would lapse into a comatose state from which she would never waken.


	37. Monday at Garmadon Ranch

Chapter 37 - Monday at Garmadon Ranch

Doc Julien had not expected to pay another visit to Garmadon Ranch so soon after Sunday night, but early Monday morning he was standing at the bedside of the unconscious Bansha after Mr. Wu made a special trip into town to summon him. Bansha's medical situation was discovered by Miss Gayle and Sam - they realized that their chatter during Sam's morning back treatment in the bedroom hadn't stirred the septuagenarian one bit.

After examining the motionless woman, the physician slowly took off his stethoscope as Mr. Wu and the two women stood and watched him.

"Let's go into the parlor for a minute," he directed them. Once they had filed out of the bedroom, he shut the bedroom door behind them.

In the parlor, Doc Julien spoke to them in a low voice. "Though Bansha is unresponsive, she may be able to hear what we say, so that's why I brought you out here."

He continued. "Bansha is dying. I've seen this happen before in other patients, where they lapse into a coma before they die. The dying process may take weeks or it may take just hours. I'm guessing Bansha will be gone in seven to ten days. I would keep offering her soup and water, but don't be surprised when she doesn't take them."

Mr. Wu stood in a thoughtful pose, crossing his arms yet cupping his chin with one hand. "I suppose I should contact Pastor Neuro to begin making her funeral arrangements."

Miss Gayle nodded in agreement, then looked at Sam. "I'm believin' she was waitin' to see ye once more before she decided it be time to be movin' on to a better place."

* * *

It was agreed among the doctor, the ranch owner, and the two women that Bansha would want everyone's lives to continue as usual and not be disrupted by her, especially since she had just apologized last night for disrupting the lives of Sam and Kai. They made the decision that, for the time being, the plans for the supper on Thursday would continue.

After asking Sam how her back was feeling, and receiving a positive response, Doc Julien left, stating he would return to the ranch tomorrow to check on things. Mr. Wu turned to go to his office to take care of some paperwork before heading into town in the afternoon to see the pastor. He said he'd keep an eye on Bansha while Miss Gayle took Sam outside to wash laundry.

But before the women exited the house, he stopped them for a second. "Miss Gayle, tonight after supper, please come by my office for a few minutes. I have to talk to you about...something."

Once the women were outside, Miss Gayle explained to Sam that on Monday of each week, she took care of washing laundry, including the dirty clothes and linens of the four cowboys. One of the boys would deliver the bundle of items from the bunkhouse to the back door of the main house early on Monday morning, and then the housekeeper would pack up the newly freshened items and leave them at the back door for pickup on Tuesday evening after they had been ironed. Because the boys hadn't been around to do their normal work in the past week, there were no work clothes to wash, but they had spent a whole week on the trail wearing their Sunday-best outfits, so those clothes would definitely need extra attention. And the clothes had indeed been included in the delivery to the back doorstep this morning.

Sam was pleased to be currently wearing one of her own dresses - one that Kai had retrieved from her saloon room - for the first time in a week. The one she wore yesterday - from Morro's house - had been worn for several days, ever since Morro's improvised funeral, and it had collected three days' worth of trail dust, so she was ready to launder it as well. She thought she might even give it away, due to the bad memories associated with it.

Miss Gayle showed Sam how to first fill up the laundry tub with boiling hot water and soap and then scrub the clothes using the washboard. Because Sam's back was not quite healed enough to handle the vigorous scrubbing activity, Miss Gayle took care of that part while Sam rinsed and hung the laundry on the clothesline to dry. She blushed slightly at hanging up the cowboys' union suits. Miss Gayle noticed.

"When ye be washin' union suits a million times, ye don't be feelin' embarrassed anymore," she told the younger woman, based on her own experience.

For the midday meal, Miss Gayle showed Sam how to make flapjacks. This originally was going to be their breakfast food, but when Bansha's medical situation was discovered, the breakfast menu had quickly changed to simple tea and toasted bread. But now there was time for the housekeeper to show the younger woman how to mix the flour and other ingredients and pour the batter to form circles on a prepared griddle, flipping when bubbles formed. Mr. Wu joined them for the midday meal and pronounced Sam's flapjacks to be "fluffy" before he left for Ninjago Town for the second time that day.

After the meal cleanup, the women attempted to feed Bansha some soup, but she had no inclination to swallow. They fed her a few drops of soup at a time so as not to choke her, for a total of a few spoonsful.

Then Miss Gayle gave her another cooking lesson, this one about preparing a beef roast with onions, carrots, and potatoes. Sam practiced the chopping skills taught to her last night. The roast was going to cook slowly in the cast iron oven for several hours.

Next, they ironed the fancy table linens and prepared the china dishes and eating utensils so that the dining table could be set on Thursday for the supper party. Place settings for a dozen people were needed.

At that point, it was time to eat supper. And clean up after supper.

Sam said she would take care of giving Bansha a little soup while Miss Gayle met with Mr. Wu in his office. Once done with the task, Sam lay down on her own bed to wait for the housekeeper to administer her evening back treatment.

When Miss Gayle returned to the room, Sam was fast asleep. It had been an exhausting day for the blonde girl.

As Miss Gayle walked over to the bed to wake her up for the treatment, she smiled, thinking about the exciting plans of Kai and Jay that Mr. Wu had just shared with her. And the preparations necessary to carry out these plans.

 _Lassie, ye may have thought today be full of activity_ , Miss Gayle thought, _but wait till ye see what the next two weeks have in store for ye!_


	38. The Supper Party

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Thanks again to all the readers and followers and "favoriters" and commenters so far in October: kairocksrainbow, MMM, Kai's Girlfriend, Guest, Princess Bunny, and FirstFandomFangirl.**

 **We are getting close to the end of this cowboy tale.**

 **After you read this Supper Party chapter, be sure to look for the next chapter to be posted soon...it's going to be EXCITING! (Hint: Kai will asking Sam a certain question!)**

 **Then there will be another chapter.**

 **And then at last we will arrive at the final chapter.** **You are astute readers, because more than one of you asked a significant plot question, and you will finally get the answer** **!**

 **My next project will be a short story that takes place after Chapter 43 of The Fire Within by measuremesky. (Chapters 41 through 43 cover the day Sam got hurt during her Spinjitzu lesson from Lloyd.) Measuremesky gave me her permission to do a fanfic of her fanfic!**

 **Then at that point, (*drum roll*) I am happy to announce that I will start a cowboy SEQUEL! I'm planning for it to contain a few dozen chapters, just like this one. I'll announce the timing for it in my author profile.**

 **KGF: Love your ship name: KaixSam equals Sai!**

* * *

CHAPTER 38 - The Supper Party

"And you're sure you don't see any more flour in my hair?" Nya asked Sam as they dressed for the supper party in an upstairs guest room in the Garmadon Ranch main house. This was the room Nya was staying in during her visit. The supper party guests were expected to arrive in two hours on this Thursday night.

Since Nya had arrived two days ago, the young women had been kept busy by Miss Gayle, being tutored in a variety of activities. One of yesterday's activity was pie baking. Sam had never made a pie, and Nya hadn't made one since she was a child. While creating two pies apiece for the supper party, the inexperienced bakers managed to spread the flour to many other places in addition to the places it was supposed to go.

"No. Flour's all gone," Sam replied to her nervous friend as she spritzed on her favorite strawberry scent.

Nya smiled. "That's good." Setting down the hand mirror in which she had been examining her face, she reached for her pair of earrings. "Those pies better have turned out tasty, after all the cleanup we had to do afterward."

"The crusts on your pies looked really good," her blonde friend affirmed. "Jay will really like them."

"I hope so. Jay told me blueberry was one of his favorites. And the crusts on your pies looked...interesting."

Sam rolled her eyes, thinking of her ugly creations as she brushed her hair. "I know. I wish I hadn't already told Kai I was baking a pie for tonight. At least he doesn't know I baked cherry ones. But since there are only two kinds, I guess he'll figure it out."

The young women heard a noise outside. Nya stood up to look out the bedroom window.

"Sheriff Lloyd and Mrs. Garmadon are here," the raven-haired girl reported. "Looks like they decided to visit the cemetery before supper. Mr. Wu is taking them in that direction in the carriage."

Sam and Nya knew that the founder of Garmadon Ranch was buried on a small plot of ranch land designated as the family cemetery, and his widow, son, and brother were going to visit the grave in a symbolic gesture of telling their loved one that his murder had been avenged a week ago when his son killed Morro. Visiting the grave was meant to bring closure to the family, who had been waiting for justice for over ten years.

Nya thought about how Sam had witnessed Morro's death, which led to her thinking about how Sam had suffered under Morro in the days before his death. "You certainly had a few awful days last week."

Sam was trying to position a hairpin just right, and so she was only partially paying attention. "Yep."

"I had a few awful days, too. Maybe not as awful as yours, but they were awful," Nya announced.

The sudden downturn in Nya's usual positive demeanor startled Sam. She turned to focus on her fellow saloon girl.

"You all right, Nya?"

"When Jay left with the posse that Sunday, I had absolutely no idea where he was for an entire week," Nya explained as she sat down on the bed next to Sam, her voice starting to tremble. "I was so worried about him, and scared for him, and mad at him, too, for being so slow in asking me to marry him, 'cause I didn't know if I'd ever see him again. I just love him so much!" Nya tried to blink back tears of frustration.

"Oh, Nya," Sam said, hugging the girl who she considered to be her best pal in spite of knowing her less than a month. "Jay loves you, too. I could tell from the way he talked about you on the way back home. I guess we just need to light a fire under him to get him going."

Nya swallowed the lump in her throat. "Well, maybe the trip with the posse did start to change him a little, 'cause one good thing happened."

"What's that?"

"When he came home, he finally kissed me!"

* * *

Sam was pleased to meet Deputy Dareth and Misako Garmadon in the time before guests were ushered into the dining room. Sam thanked the deputy for his participation in the search for her and Kai last week.

Misako had been out of town on a business trip to Sasnak City to buy tea for her shop and therefore had not been present in church on the day of the kidnapping. Upon meeting the blonde girl, Misako hugged her and told her that even though the two women shared a common attribute in that they were both victims of Morro's cruelty, with Misako being an indirect victim and Sam being a direct victim, Misako hoped that the two women would find many other happier traits in common as they got to know each other. Sam appreciated that Misako was already considering Sam to be a friend of hers.

Miss Gayle whispered to Mr. Wu that the supper was ready. Mr. Wu directed his guests to the dining room table.

Once everyone was seated, Mr. Wu stood at his place at the head of the table and announced, "Excuse me, everyone. I would like to propose a toast." He waited until his eleven supper companions picked up their glasses of wine before he proceeded.

"I would like to propose a toast, first of all, to Miss Gayle and her assistants, Sam and Nya, for preparing our delicious looking supper of cream fricassee of chicken with asparagus points."

Kai, seated next to Sam, smiled as he watched her blush.

"Secondly, I propose a toast to Miss Bansha, whose ways have seemed odd over the years, but whose heart has ended up in the right place."

The ranch owner continued. "And I want to propose a toast to the brave men around this table tonight who, although they practice different professions, came together and selflessly pursued justice on behalf of our friends who were unjustly treated. And because of that, our friends are safe here tonight." Sam and Kai looked around the table at the others with gratefulness.

"Finally I propose a toast to a man whose dedication to his family, his town, and his livelihood was unsurpassed. Though most of you at this table did not personally know him, you can ultimately point to him as the reason you are sitting at this table tonight in the house he built. I toast the man who was Misako's husband, Lloyd's father, and my brother. Here, here!"

The sounds of clinking glasses and "Here, here!" echoed around the room.

* * *

After supper, the guests moved from the dining room to the spacious front porch, where they could mill about as they enjoyed coffee and tea from Misako's shop and dessert on this pleasant summer evening. Nya put her saloon girl expertise to use and took charge of serving the beverages. Sam stood at the table set up on one side of the porch where the blueberry pies, cherry pies, pudding, and a lemon cake had been placed. She was in charge of serving desserts.

She looked at her cherry pies. She had tried to make a lattice crust but her dough strips were not as evenly sized nor as evenly spaced as those on Nya's blueberry pies.

 _Maybe if I hurry up and cut up my pies, no one will realize how ugly they are_ , she thought.

Just as she grabbed the serving knife, a voice whispered "Excuse me, ma'am" in her ear.

Startled, she whirled around with the knife in her hand. Kai, the owner of the voice, quickly jumped out of the knife's way.

"Whoa, Sam!" he exclaimed. "Remember when I told you I'd want you on my side in a bar fight anytime? I still stand by that statement!"

"I'm sorry!" Sam apologized, embarrassed. "But you scared me!"

She saw him eye the still-uncut cherry pies and watched a smirk form on his face.

"All right, cowboy, laugh now and be done with it," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I'm not going to laugh," he assured her. "I'll just say they have...character."

"And looks don't matter as much as taste," Cole said as he walked up to them. He was concerned that Kai was distracting Sam from distributing the sweets. "Let the lady do her job, Kai, so I can have some of that lemon cake."

"Don't worry," Sam interjected. "You boys will get what you want. But first I'm going to serve Mrs. Garmadon and Doc Julien." She gestured toward the porch swing where the physician and the widow were seated next to each other.

* * *

The evening was winding down. Misako had left with Lloyd and Dareth. Doc Julien was looking in on Bansha. Mr. Wu had taken the cowboys to the stable to show them a catalog of horse-related supplies and obtain their opinions on whether or not to order some items from it. Miss Gayle was in the kitchen. Sam presumed Nya was with her.

Sam was in charge of gathering the leftover desserts from the porch and bringing them back to the kitchen to store them. Before she did that, she decided to help herself to a slice of her cherry pie. She had become so busy with serving the guests that she forgot to serve herself a slice. She was happy to hear from others that the pie tasted a lot better than it looked.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but may I have some more dessert?"

Sam looked over toward the voice. It was Kai, leaning with his shoulder against a porch pillar, his arms folded across his chest. He was wearing that adorable lopsided grin.

"Sure thing, cowboy. What flavor would you like?" Sam asked, her blue eyes twinkling.

"Well, I've already had blueberry." He straightened up, gazing into her eyes as he slowly walked toward her.

"And I've had cherry." Still gazing at her, he reached the location where she was standing, but he kept walking, forcing her to begin stepping backward.

"Now I'm thinking about sampling strawberry." He finally stopped walking when he had backed her up against the wall of the house. He extended his arm in front of him and placed his hand on the wall above her shoulder, partially blocking her escape.

"We don't have strawberry pie, sir," she chuckled, amused at his mischievous actions.

"Who said I was talking about pie?" he murmured as he leaned in to give her a kiss. Her fruity scent was intoxicating.

Sam smiled as she reached up to touch his cheek, smoothly shaven and now displaying only a hint of a fading bruise since she had last seen him on Sunday. "How did you escape from the stable?" she managed to ask before Kai leaned in to kiss her again.

"I excused myself to go back to the house for another slice of your cherry pie. It's funny that at the same time, Jay said he was going back for a glass of water."

"Do you really want some more pie?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I would indeed. But right now I'm enjoying another sweet dessert." Kai's lips once more found Sam's, this time lingering on them.

Just then Miss Gayle walked out the front door onto the porch.

"Yerra!" she exclaimed, startling them. The housekeeper looked at Kai. "Everywhere I go, there be a kissin' cowboy. First it be Jay out back by the water pump with Miss Nya, and now it be you with Miss Sam on the front porch!" she exclaimed as she waved her dishtowel in the air and turned to walk back in the house.

Kai and Sam looked at each other sheepishly.

"Maybe I'll have that slice of cherry pie now," he suggested.

"I was just about to have one, too," she said, nodding.

Sam cut two slices, then Kai walked her over to the porch swing and helped her sit. He retrieved the desserts and sat next to her, handing her a plate.

"I noticed you're moving around better than when I saw you on Sunday," he commented as dug into his pie with his fork. "Is your back feeling better?"

Sam nodded. "It is getting better. And Doc Julien thinks it's healing well enough that I need to have the salve applied and the bandages changed only once per day now. How's your foot?" she asked. "I didn't see you limp at all tonight."

"Good. I haven't felt much discomfort at all lately."

While they ate, the couple spent a few minutes catching up on what had been going on with each of them during the past few days. He had already learned of Bansha's situation from Mr. Wu.

Kai finished his dessert and, seeing that Sam's was finished as well, took both empty plates and set them aside.

"I reckon I should get going," the cowboy said as he rose from the porch swing. "Sunup will be here quicker than the blink of an eye, and I still want to pay my compliments to Miss Gayle and Mr. Wu for the supper tonight."

"And I should finish putting the food away," the blonde girl said as she was helped up from her seat.

Kai took her hands in his. "So the next time we see each other will be Sunday morning. I'll pick you up about nine o'clock for church, and afterward we'll have a picnic. Miss Gayle said she'd prepare one for us to take along. Then I can give you the tour of our Ninjago Town countryside."

Sam smiled into his soft brown eyes. "And I'm looking forward to it!"


	39. The Marriage Proposal

Chapter 39 - The Marriage Proposal

"How beautiful!" Sam exclaimed. She and Kai had just reached the top of Sunset Point while riding on his horse, Flame. She had been saying that expression a lot during this Sunday afternoon as he gave her a tour of the picturesque countryside surrounding Ninjago Town.

She had felt a little guilty about going off on an outing today while Miss Gayle stayed at the ranch with Bansha, especially since this was the second consecutive Sunday that the housekeeper missed out on visiting her sister. But Miss Gayle had been adamant that Sam spend a nice afternoon with Kai after the church service and a picnic at noon. When Kai had arrived that morning to pick up Sam on his chestnut gelding, Miss Gayle had given him a knowing look when Sam wasn't looking.

Now, the shadows were growing longer as the sun sank toward the western horizon. The valley that stretched below them was bathed with rich golden hues. The eastern sky was just beginning to turn a lavender color.

Kai guided his steed near a boulder. "Let's sit down here," he said. He dismounted first. Though Sam's back was healing nicely, it was still injured, so Kai still carefully lifted her off the horse and set her on the ground. They sat on the big rock and surveyed the gorgeous panorama below them.

"This is so lovely, Kai," Sam sighed as he put his arm around her shoulders.

With his other hand he interlaced his fingers with hers. "I'm enjoying the scenery, too," he announced with a grin as he admired the view next to him.

She rolled her eyes at him and nudged him playfully with her elbow.

For the next several minutes, Kai continued to fidget with Sam's fingers without saying anything. _I hope she can't tell I'm a little nervous_ , he thought.

The blood pounded in Sam's ears as she struggled to keep her breathing to a normal measured pace. She sensed that the moment she had been waiting for was imminent.

Kai took a deep breath. He suddenly stood up from the boulder, dug a small item out of his pocket, and dropped down on one knee in front of her.

His soft brown eyes gazed tenderly into her blue ones.

"Samantha Rose Borg, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

He revealed the small item he had dug out of his pocket. It was a red velvet box. He opened the box to display its contents - a simple ring of gold on which sat a single small diamond.

He then said the words he had been so desperate to say to her for days.

"I love you, Sam."

Sam breathed in sharply upon hearing him say the words for the first time. As the significance of the moment sank in, tears of joy welled up in her eyes.

"Oh, Kai, I love you, too!" she declared. "Yes, I will be your wife!"

Kai's heart leaped for joy. Her answer was not unexpected, but the days of anticipating her affirmative response to his question were now in the past. This beautiful girl, who grew up surrounded by high-society people and fancy things, had actually chosen to spend her life with him, a simple rancher.

He wanted to kiss her, but first he needed to do something.

He removed the ring from its box. "Let's try this on to make sure it fits you. We can go back to Karlof Jewelers if it needs adjusting. That Karlof sure knows his metals."

Carefully he slid the circle of gold on her appropriate finger. The little piece of jewelry fit perfectly.

Sam held up her left hand to admire the new adornment. The diamond sparkled brilliantly in the light of the almost-setting sun. "It's gorgeous!" she whispered.

She smiled at him. "Come sit by me," she said, patting the space on the boulder next to her. Kai got off his knee and settled himself on the big rock. They kissed, and then she rested her head on his shoulder as he put his arm around her. It was time to make some plans.

"So do you wanna get married at the church?" he asked her.

"I would love that. What day should that be?" she questioned him in return.

"Well, right now, Jay is bending down on one knee in front of Nya, asking her to be his wife..."

Sam's eyes widened. "He is? Oh, that's wonderful! Nya will be so happy!" She recalled what Nya had told her about how hard it was to wait for the cowboy with the blue kerchief to pop the question.

"...so if you're up for a double wedding, then how about next Sunday?" Kai asked her.

 _Double wedding...double happiness...double fun!_ she thought. "Great idea!" she told him.

"I'm glad," Kai said as he gave her a squeeze. "When Jay and I told Mr. Wu what our plans were regarding you ladies, he's the one who suggested the double wedding, and he said if we did that, he'd even host a barbecue at the ranch after the ceremony. And I do like me some good barbecue!"

Sam laughed. "I know!" Then it was her turn to ask him a question.

"Speaking of after the ceremony, where are we going to live?"

"On the ranch. Mr. Wu has always had a standing offer to build a small cottage on the ranch as a wedding gift to any ranch hand and his bride-to-be when they got engaged. Mr. Wu's policy was to wait to build until the girl said yes to the marriage proposal, but Jay convinced him that answers of yes from you and Nya were guaranteed, and so he should start building right away!" Kai chuckled at the memory of the conversation.

He continued. "So Mr. Wu bought the materials and hired some cowboys from other ranches around the county this past week, and yesterday Jay and I helped them work on the two cottages. We each got to pick a spot on the ranch to build them. And they'll be ready by the end of this coming week. And we'll even get some basic furniture, too!"

He kissed her as he said, "I can't wait for you to see the spot I picked. Pretty little area right by the Ninjago River."

"I can't wait, either," she responded, giving him a kiss in return.

She them turned her gaze outward to the valley below and grew quiet as she became lost in thought.

"You all right?" Kai asked, fidgeting with her fingers again.

Sam nodded. "I was just thinking about Daddy. If he were alive, I just know he'd like you, and he'd give his blessing on our marriage."

Kai looked in her eyes and smiled. "I would have liked to meet him."

Sam returned the smile, thinking what a lucky girl she was to be engaged to this sweet, handsome man.

Kai stood up, carefully pulling Sam off the boulder and wrapping his arms gently around her waist.

He thought for a minute, then he took off his hat and put it on her head. His brown eyes sparkled with delight at how pretty she looked.

"The cowboy look suits you," he declared with a grin.

Just then, the hat, which was a size or two larger than her head, slipped forward over her eyes.

Sam pushed it back up so she could see again. "I guess I need a cowgirl-sized cowboy hat," she chuckled.

"Yep, you're right. 'Cause you're a cowgirl now," he nodded.

He took the hat and placed it on his head again, pushing it back well above his eyes. "Well, future Mrs. Smith, shall we head back now?" he asked, leaning to touch his forehead to hers.

"Not before we do this!" She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Kiss me, cowboy!"

Silhouetted by the conflagration of the setting sun, Kai and Sam kissed as the hot fire of love burned within their hearts.


	40. The Week Before the Wedding

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 **Here's a homework assignment:**

 **1\. Finish reading this chapter**

 **2\. Go to YouTube and, in the search box, type "Taylor Crazier Swift"**

 **3\. Watch - but mainly listen to - one of the videos that show up.** **I think the song is a good cowboy waltz and I can imagine the tune being played at the wedding barbecue in the next chapter!**

 **4\. Look for the next chapter, which will be the final chapter of this cowboy tale.**

 **P. S. This chapter contains some foreshadowing of events that will occur in my next cowboy tale. See if you can guess where I put the foreshadowing!**

* * *

CHAPTER 40 - The Week Before the Wedding

** Monday **

Sam woke up very early on Monday morning. Through the window she could see that sunrise would not occur for another hour, but she could not fall asleep again once the wonderful event of late yesterday afternoon flashed through her mind. Kai had proposed marriage to her, and by this time next week, she would be his wife!

Smiling to herself, she recalled the other events of yesterday as well.

Prior to the morning church service, she had begun to get nervous as she and Kai had approached the house of worship. Her one other visit to the church had been the day of the kidnapping, when everyone had found out her secret about being an heiress. Even though Sam no longer had her money - and she didn't know if she'd ever see it again, since she didn't have many resources to pursue a claim to it in the courts - she was afraid folks would somehow not like her because of her background, or maybe they would like her, but only because of her background.

But as she and Kai had walked toward the door to go in, she sensed genuineness from the townsfolk who recognized them and came up to them, expressing sympathy about the plight they endured, as well as happiness that they had returned safely. Sam was relieved and pleased to be surrounded by such friendliness.

She remembered that some of the cowboys from other ranches had given her smug looks. Now she understood why. They were helping to build the cottages for the soon-to-be newlyweds, so they knew about the timing of the marriage proposals before she and Nya did.

Pastor Neuro officially welcomed her, Kai, and the posse members back during the service, asking them to stand up as he said a few words about them during announcement time.

After the service, Sam was pleased to renew contact with three of the other saloon girls - Brooke, Jenny, and Star. Their fellow saloon girl, Violet, had left Ninjago Town, looking for another saloon job. The other girls wanted to stay, and they had found small jobs to make a little money while they waited on the fate of the closed saloon, but they felt that if the saloon didn't open soon, they would have no choice but to move away if they wanted to find a good paying position.

Of course, the girls, who had seen Sam arrive at the church holding hands with Kai, wanted to know all about her relationship with her beau, for the last time they had talked to her, she had just met the cowboy who wore the red kerchief.

A few minutes later, after Jenny and Star had said goodbye, Brooke privately revealed to Sam that, after seeing a certain black-haired Garmadon Ranch cowboy stand up in church and be recognized for his heroic deed, Brooke finally realized she was sweet on him after knowing him for a while as a customer of the saloon. She told Sam she was going to find a way to bake Cole a cake. Sam assured her that she'd keep the secret.

After replaying yesterday's events in her mind, Sam looked out the window again. The sky was now brighter, so she knew Miss Gayle would soon be knocking on her door to apply salve and fresh bandages. Later on they would wash clothes, since today was Monday, and this week there would be work clothes that needed laundering.

Sam rose. After saying "Good morning, Bansha" to the comatose woman in the other twin bed in the room, she began preparing for the day.

** Tuesday **

Sam was especially excited on this Tuesday morning as she dressed for the day, once her daily back treatment was finished. Today she was going to accompany Miss Gayle to Ninjago Town as the housekeeper drove the big wagon. Mr. Wu was going to keep an eye on Bansha while he took care of the ranch's administrative tasks in his office at the main house today.

The trip to town proved to be a busy one, as several errands needed to be taken care of.

One errand was to visit Sam's saloon room and pack up her possessions in her steamer trunk, for she was going to permanently vacate the saloon room. Nya also packed her own belongings from her own room. Both ladies were going to live at the ranch's main house for a few days until the wedding ceremony.

Sam was delighted to talk to Nya and find out from the future Mrs. Walker how the events of Sunday had unfolded for her and Jay.

At this point, Miss Gayle went by herself to procure supplies for the barbecue. She planned to rejoin the younger ladies later in the day.

Once the housekeeper went to take care of her own business, the brides-to-be stopped at Karlof Jewelers to purchase the wedding rings for their cowboys. At the time Jay and Kai had bought the women's rings, they picked out rings for themselves that would fit and would be suitable for hand-intensive cowboy work. Mr. Karlof put these aside to wait until the ladies visited his shop.

By this time, midday was approaching, and so the girls decided to visit Misako's tea shop and enjoy a refreshment. Lloyd had told his mother that Kai and Jay were planning to propose marriage, and she had learned yesterday from Mr. Wu that they had indeed popped the question. Misako admired the girls' engagement rings as she served tea and light pastries. When they told her that their next errand was to shop for wedding dresses, Misako shared with them the same advice she had received years ago when she herself was preparing to become a cowboy's wife - to find a dress that was pretty but not specifically a bridal gown. That way, the dress could be worn at other special occasions as well. A good cowboy's wife was practical.

They heeded Misako's advice when they visited Miss Camille's Dress Emporium next door. Nya found a light blue ladies' Edwardian suit. Sam selected a two-piece rose colored ensemble featuring a fitted outing jacket and matching skirt.

As a favor to Mr. Wu, the girls stopped by the telegraph office to pick up any messages for him. Indeed, there was a message - a response to a telegram Mr. Wu had sent yesterday to Jay's parents, Ed and Edna Walker, who lived in Sasnak City. The telegram said they were pleased as punch to learn of their son's upcoming wedding to that nice girl, and they would be traveling to Ninjago Town to attend the ceremony. Nya laughed, imagining that Jay would face-palm himself upon reading the telegram, certain that his mama and daddy would find some way to embarrass him on Sunday.

The last errand to do before they met up with Miss Gayle was to visit the newspaper office and ask the editor to print the announcement of the upcoming ceremony in the newspaper. The newspaper editor asked Sam if she wanted her wedding announcement printed in the newspaper of her home city back East. He would be happy to forward it along.

Sam considered his offer. Her life back East was all right, but she really wasn't close to anyone. She had lost contact with the circle of friends she had once interacted with. Mary Adams was the adventurous one in the group. Sarah Brock was more of a shy person. David Cook was sweet on Sarah. And Jacob Clouse was sweet on Sam, or so she had thought.

Jake was the young man Sam had told Kai about as they ate breakfast in the jail cell back in Noscut. As Jake had courted Sam, she fell in love with the tall, handsome blond, who looked a lot like Sheriff Lloyd. But when her daddy saw that their relationship was getting serious, he took his daughter aside and told her that in his opinion, Jake seemed like a scoundrel who only liked her for her money. At first Sam rejected Mr. Borg's opinion of Jake, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized her daddy was right. By the time Jake proposed marriage, Sam was ready to turn down his proposal and end their romance. The bankruptcy declared just weeks later by Jake's father confirmed Mr. Borg's suspicions about Jake's intentions toward his daughter. Sam was thankful she had listened to her daddy's advice about Jake, for if she had not heeded it, she would never have met Kai, and Kai was so much better than Jake.

Sam ultimately decided that to show respect to her daddy, she would have her wedding news, and thus her whereabouts, published in the newspaper back East, so that his circle of friends and business acquaintances could at least know what happened to his daughter. She had tried to disassociate herself from her world back East by running away, but Morro proved she could not completely sever the ties to her past. And maybe she didn't need to separate herself from her background anymore.

She had lots of friends here in Ninjago Town who liked her just for who she was, and that mattered most.

** Wednesday **

Though the tailor shop normally closed at suppertime, the tailor was still working into the evening, but he did not mind. Mr. Wu was compensating him for the extra time he was spending on tailoring the black wedding frock coats of two particular grooms-to-be. In addition, Mr. Wu was compensating the tailor for the use of his shop. The ranch owner was hosting a small gathering of gentlemen for an evening of cigars and poker in celebration of the upcoming nuptials.

To add a bit of humor to the evening, the winner of the poker game would win a ladies' jeweled hairpin. Cole ended up being the one who got to take it home at the end of the evening. He was going to toss it into his box of his possessions at the bunkhouse, as a sort of trophy for triumphing over his companions in a game he liked to play.

"Even after not playing for nearly three weeks, Lady Luck is still on my side!" he grinned.

** Thursday **

Though the time was getting late on Thursday night, Doc Julien, Mr. Wu, Miss Gayle, Sam, and Nya were gathered around Bansha's bedside. Several hours earlier, the frail woman had taken a turn for the worse. Her breathing became irregular, her skin color became grayer, and her coughing became more pronounced.

When it became evident that her condition was not merely temporary, Mr. Wu had decided to ride to town to summon Doc Julien.

Now they had been gathered around Bansha's bedside for the past two hours. Her symptoms persisted.

Then she started moaning, as if she were agitated.

"She's trying to say something," Sam announced. Over the last few hours, her mind had flashed back to a year earlier, when her daddy was on his deathbed. It seemed to Sam that the same scenario was unfolding tonight, almost exactly as it did then.

Bansha's moaning grew louder. Doc Julien dabbed her mouth with a cloth. Sam patted her shoulder.

Suddenly, with a clear voice, they heard her call out.

"Isaiah! Emma! Boys!"

With a smile on her face, Bansha took one more breath, and then she was still.

Doc Julien checked her vital signs, and then he checked his pocket watch. "Time of death, 10:10 pm."

"I'll ride over to the bunkhouse and get the boys to bring the coffin from the stable to the bedroom here," Mr. Wu said.

"I be startin' a fresh pot of coffee," Miss Gayle said with a lump in her throat. She patted Bansha's hand and quickly exited the room.

Nya wiped her eyes with the cuff of her dress sleeve. "I'll go help Miss Gayle," she said, following the housekeeper out the door.

"We'll set her in the parlor until the funeral, which I guess will be on Saturday. Tomorrow I'll have the boys dig the grave in the ranch cemetery." Mr. Wu said. "Ordinarily I'd have Bo do it," he added, referring to the gardener, "but he just came back from a two-week trip to Sasnak City to lay his mama to rest and settle her affairs."

The ranch owner turned to the physician before leaving the room. "Do stay the night, Doctor. It's pretty late right now."

"Thank you, Mr. Wu. I would appreciate it."

"I'll go find out from Miss Gayle which room is the preferable one for you to stay in, Doc," Sam told him. As she turned toward the door, she looked at the old woman's serene countenance.

 _Rest in peace, Bansha_ , she thought.


	41. The Wedding Day

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

 **As I finish my first fan fiction story, I wish to thank you all for your support and encouragement! -MNC 10/20/2015**

* * *

CHAPTER 41 - The Wedding Day

The Sunday morning sun shone down on Garmadon Ranch from a clear blue sky. The brightness matched Sam's mood as she sat alone in the first-floor bedroom, applying the final touches to her appearance before the wedding.

Earlier that morning, she and Nya and Miss Gayle had arisen before sunup, for Mr. Wu had hired several cowboys from the Double S Ranch to cook the meat for the barbecue, and they had to come over early to start the process - good barbecue meat took several hours to make. Plus there were other preparations to finalize before the guests arrived in the midday. Later, Sam and Nya had helped each other dress and fix each other's hair.

Now, the time was almost nine o'clock. Though the ceremony was not until 11, she was expecting Mr. Wu to knock on the bedroom door soon, for he wished to speak with her about something. Yesterday at the church, after Bansha's funeral and during the meal served by the church's Ladies' Hospitality Committee, he had asked if she could spare a few minutes this morning for a discussion.

Sam heard a knock at her door, and sure enough, it was indeed the ranch owner, cutting a swell in his fine wedding attire.

"You look very nice, Mr. Wu," she complimented him as she invited him into the room to sit down on the room chair.

"And you look very lovely this morning, Sam. Kai is a lucky man to have such a beautiful bride," Mr. Wu replied. Sam blushed and thanked him as she sat down on the bed.

Mr. Wu cleared his throat. "All right, I'm glad you're sitting down. Here's what I need to tell you. As you know, while you and Kai and the posse were still in Skeleton Territory, I returned to Ninjago Town with Bansha. She must have sensed her time here on earth was coming to an end, for she wanted to draw up a will, and she asked me to be the executor of her will. At the time, all she had was some clothes, a few trinkets, and her gun. She thought she had her horse, too, but we all know what happened to it. Anyway, in other words, she didn't have much to bequeath to anyone."

Taking a deep breath, he continued. "But when you all came back to Ninjago Town and said that Morro was dead and had named Bansha as his sole beneficiary, Bansha suddenly became a very rich woman. A lawyer confirmed that the copy of Morro's will that Lloyd came across was indeed current and valid."

He went on. "Now that Bansha herself has died, the sole beneficiary who she named in her will has become very rich."

"And who is that?" Sam asked.

Mr. Wu leaned forward in the chair and looked Sam in the eye. "You."

Sam gasped.

Mr. Wu continued. "Besides considering you as a sort of honorary daughter, Bansha felt guilty about making a mux of your life by participating in your kidnapping. She felt especially guilty when, in spite of what she had done, you treated her kindly, like feeding her soup. So making you the beneficiary of her will was her little way of making amends."

"So I reckon you could say you got your money back from Morro, and then some," he concluded.

In her shock, Sam struggled to form words. "I had pretty much given up on the idea of going to court to get Daddy's money back. I didn't think I had enough money to pay a lawyer to pursue a claim. So this is incredible news."

Mr. Wu smiled. "It'll take a few days before I, as the executor, can disburse the funds, so you have some time to think about where you'd like me to deposit the money. Just let me know."

"Thank you, Mr. Wu," Sam replied. "Um, does Kai know about this?"

Mr. Wu shook his head. "No. No one does but you, me, and a lawyer. Though, as you no doubt know, when there's this much money involved, some newspaper reporter from a big city like Qubla or Sasnak City is bound to find out. Especially Qubla. Morro was making himself well known in Skeleton Territory."

Sam nodded in understanding.

Mr. Wu stood up. "Well, I'll leave you be now while you attend to your preparations. But I do have one more thing to say."

"What would that be, Mr. Wu?" Sam said as she stood up and walked him to the door.

They paused at the doorway. "I want you to know that I consider all my ranch hands to be my honorary sons, and therefore by marrying Kai, you become my honorary daughter-in-law. So welcome to the family, my daughter!"

Sam and Mr. Wu hugged, and then he walked out the door to take care of some things before ten o'clock, when he would depart with the brides-to-be and the housekeeper for the church.

As Sam worked on taking care of a few of her own last-minute tasks, she thought about when she'd tell the inheritance news to Kai. _Sometime after the barbecue would be the best time_ , she thought while she put the remainder of her possessions in her steamer trunk. Kai had told her yesterday that someone would take care of transporting her trunk from the main house to their new cottage.

* * *

The wedding ceremony, officiated by Pastor Neuro immediately following the weekly church service, was simple yet beautiful. The church ladies had done a lovely job of decorating the church with flowers from Garmadon Ranch - grown, harvested, and delivered by Bo the gardener.

Mr. Wu escorted Nya down the aisle as she carried a bouquet of violets. Doc Julien escorted Sam, who carried a single white rose. Sam easily wiped from her memory her disastrous previous walk down a church aisle, especially when she observed the twinkle in Kai's eyes as he watched her approach the altar.

 _She's beautiful_ , Kai thought to himself.

 _He looks so handsome,_ Sam thought to herself, admiring his ensemble which consisted of his black cowboy hat, black frock coat, white shirt, striped black and burgundy vest, and matching burgundy necktie. Jay wore a similar ensemble except that instead of the color of burgundy, his outfit contained the color of light blue.

The brides had agreed to serve as each other's honor attendants. Likewise, the grooms served as each other's best man and as the ring bearer for the other couple.

Jay and Nya said their vows first, then it was Kai and Sam's turn.

"Do you, Kai, take Samantha to be your wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do you part?"

Kai smiled as he gazed steadily into the blue eyes of the beautiful young woman standing in front of him. "I do!"

"Do you, Samantha, take Kai to be your wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death do you part?"

Sam's throat tightened with emotion at the realization of how much she loved this cowboy standing before her. She blinked back tears and whispered, "I do."

After the exchange of rings, Pastor Neuro pronounced the couples as officially married, and the grooms were invited to kiss their brides. Kai was not able to dip Sam, due to the condition of her back, but Jay dipped Nya, who definitely was not expecting it. When Jay brought her back to a standing-up position again, she was red-faced and out of breath, but smiling.

The church bells began to ring in celebration of the happy occasion.

No one present at the ceremony would have guessed that within two years, external forces would put the love between Kai and Sam to the test.

* * *

Mr. Wu drove Miss Gayle and the newly married couples in his carriage from the church back out to Garmadon Ranch, where the delicious aroma of barbecue and the sound of good music were wafting through the air. The couples would be joining the guests once they had wedding photographs taken in the parlor of the main house.

From the carriage they could see the activity on the front lawn, which was the location of today's festivities. Sam was delighted to see that Rufus the bartender and the saloon girls were going to serve food and refreshments to the guests. And Lou could be seen in a corner of the lawn with some of his friends, providing musical entertainment. Lou was the saloon's piano player, but he also knew how to play the fiddle - toe tapping tunes, slow waltzes, and everything in between. Mr. Wu's compensation of these good people for their time provided him with the help needed to host the barbecue and provided them with some extra money in their pocket.

The fate of the saloon was still up in the air. The saloon girls had told Sam that Rufus wished he had the money to buy it. Perhaps in the week ahead she could make a business deal with Rufus, offering him a loan to purchase it from her, now that she owned it, and get it operational again. Its original owner, Morro, may have been a scoundrel, but the saloon itself helped people by providing entertainment and jobs.

* * *

The delicious barbecue and side dishes, provided by the cowboys from the Double S Ranch, had been enjoyed by the guests, and now it was time for dancing.

As a special surprise to the newlyweds, Cole was going to play his harmonica in accompaniment to Lou and his friends as they performed the first-dance song.

Kai and Jay took their brides to the dance area and held them close as the slow tune began to play.

"So did you enjoy your barbecue?" Sam asked her new husband as they moved to the music.

Kai smacked his lips. "Delicious! Rusty and the boys did an ace-high job on their grub. We've tried to get 'em to spill the beans on their secret, but they won't give it up."

"It was tasty," Sam agreed.

"And you know what else is good today?" Kai asked his new wife.

"What would that be?"

"The way you look," he answered, his brown eyes twinkling. "You're a beautiful bride, Sam."

Sam blushed. "Thank you kindly, cowboy. You're cutting a swell today, too!"

Kai's eyebrows raised. "So you've been learning a little cowboy lingo, huh?"

"I've been picking it up from Miss Gayle," Sam chuckled.

Kai chuckled also. "You'll be speaking like a native Ninjagoan in no time. After all, you are a cowgirl now. My cowgirl."

They exchanged a kiss.

The second stanza of the song began to play. Other guests paired up and joined in on the dancing.

Sam rested her head again Kai's chest and closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of being in his strong arms as they swayed to the rest of the sweet song.

When the tune finished, the musicians were treated to well deserved applause. Cole earned hugs from the two brides for his special accompaniment.

Sam noticed Brooke standing nearby. The ladies exchanged smiles. Sam guessed that Brooke would not be venturing more than a few yards away from the black-haired cowboy during the next few hours of the afternoon.

* * *

A little bit later, Kai danced with Nya and Jay danced with Sam.

"I gotta thank you, Sam," Jay told her as they moved to the music.

"For what?" she asked him.

"If you hadn't come to Ninjago Town, Morro wouldn't have kidnapped you, and I wouldn't have realized that I needed to stop wishing I could marry Nya and that I should actually do it!"

"You're welcome, I think," Sam responded, furrowing her brow because she was not quite convinced of his logic. But she added, "You have definitely made Nya very happy, Jay. I wish you both all the best!" Sam paused their dancing to give him a hug.

Before they could resume, they were approached by an older looking couple. A nervous look appeared in Jay's eyes.

"Howdy, son! We don't mean to interrupt you, but we haven't had a chance to meet the other bride today. Right, Edna?"

"That's right, Ed. Jay, would you be a dear and introduce us to the lovely young lady?"

Jay took a breath. "Ma, Daddy, this here is Samantha Borg...I mean Smith! Samantha Smith! Sam, this is my daddy and mama, Ed and Edna Walker."

"Such a pleasure to meet you, dear," the kindly lady said, taking her hand. Mr. Walker tipped his hat to her.

Sam smiled. "Likewise. Please call me Sam."

"Take a note, Edna. The young lady wishes to be called Sam," Ed instructed his wife.

"Yes, Ed," Edna replied to her husband before turning her attention back to Sam. "Sam, dear, I hope we'll be able to spend some one-on-one time with Jay and Nya and you and Kai before we go back to Sasnak City in a few days. There's so much to talk about. Like the story about when Jay was just a tiny little shaver, and he thought that people could eat horse apples just like the apples you pick off a tree."

"Ma! Stop!" Jay implored her as he face-palmed himself. The barbecue had barely begun two hours ago, and his mama had already embarrassed him.

* * *

As Zane and Sam danced, they saw Cole and Brooke standing under a tree, talking. Then Cole reached into his pocket and gave something to her. Whatever it was, Brooke seemed pleased with it.

"What do you suppose he gave her?" Sam wondered.

Zane smiled. "Most likely it's the jeweled ladies' hairpin he won at our gentlemen's poker game on Wednesday night. At first he was going to keep it, but when we got back to the bunkhouse yesterday after Bansha's funeral and the church meal, he announced he was going to give it a better home. It probably had something to do with the fact that Brooke baked some cakes for the meal in Mrs. Garmadon's tea shop oven and gave one to Cole."

It was Sam's turn to smile. Brooke was certainly setting her cap for the tall, muscular black-haired cowboy.

* * *

The sun had already sunk below the horizon when a certain tired cowboy and his tired new bride rode on Flame, his chestnut gelding, to their new little home in a secluded wooded corner of Garmadon Ranch, next to the Ninjago River.

The light was growing dim, but Sam could still see the cottage's general appearance.

"It's so cute!" she exclaimed

Kai said, "I chose to build it on this spot so we could have our privacy." His eyes twinkled in the lantern light. Sam blushed.

They rode to the little stable behind the cottage.

"Even Flame gets a new house, too!" Sam exclaimed. As Kai dismounted and helped her dismount, she noted that the stable had four stalls in it.

"One's for Flame, one's for your future horse when we get one," Kai explained, playfully tapping her on her nose, "and one's for their future foal. And the fourth one is for a guest's horse."

Sam was about to tell him that she now actually owned a horse, but then she'd have to explain why Morro's coal-black gelding, which then became Bansha's horse, was now Sam's horse, and she didn't want to go into that right now.

Sam helped Kai tend to Flame, and then they walked around to the front door.

After Kai pushed the door open, he scooped up Sam in bridal-style fashion as she let out a squeal. "I need to carry you over the threshold into our new home. Wedding tradition," he explained.

She laughed as he carried her into the house and set her down.

Sam took a deep breath and enjoyed the scent of fresh new wood. She held up the lantern in her hand and looked around. From the parlor area they were standing in, she could see a fireplace and a dining area. Simple furnishings had already been put in place. A familiar possession caught her eye as she looked through the open doorway into the adjacent bedroom.

"My steamer trunk," she said as she walked into the room. "Who brought my things here?"

"Cole delivered your trunk and Nya's trunk to the cottages in the wagon during the barbecue," Kai replied. "I believe he brought along Brooke when he took care of that errand," Kai added as he lit a candle on the bedside table before extinguishing the lantern.

Sam smiled. Brooke was no doubt pleased to accompany the black-haired cowboy on his task.

"Well, this is a wonderful place," the new bride sighed as she surveyed her new home. "I'd like to thank Mr. Wu as soon as possible."

"Mr. Wu gave Jay and me the day off tomorrow."

"That was nice of him."

"It was," Kai agreed, "especially since I have some business to attend to."

Sam was puzzled. She tried to remember if he had mentioned needing to attend to anything, but she couldn't recall it. "What business?"

"I have to find all your tickle spots!" he grinned.

Sam laughed as Kai scooped her up in bridal-style fashion again and carefully laid her on the bed. Quickly stepping around to the bed's other side, he reclined next to her, propping himself up on his elbow to gaze into her eyes. His mood switched from playful to earnest.

He reached for her left hand with his. Their brand new wedding rings shone in the candlelight. He noticed how Sam's eyes also shone brightly as she looked back at him adoringly.

He also detected a hint of concern in her hypnotic blue orbs. "Something wrong, Sam?" he asked, squeezing her hand.

She looked away, embarrassed to bring up what she had been thinking. "Well, uh, my back still hurts sometimes, and, uh, I'm a little worried that it might...interfere with...um..." She looked back at him, struggling to find the words to complete her sentence.

"Sh. Don't worry," he quietly assured her with a smile, placing a finger on her lips. "I'll be gentle."

Sam smiled gratefully into his soft brown eyes. "I love you, Kai," she responded as she reached up to cup his cheek. The delicate touch of her fingertips sent a shiver down his spine.

"I love you, too, Sam," he murmured as he leaned in to kiss her.

Her exhilarating strawberry scent fueled his longing for her. For several minutes, his hungry lips explored hers before they slowly and tenderly traveled down her neck, past her throat, to where the sweetheart neckline of her dress stopped him from proceeding further.

"Oh, Kai!" she whispered, her breathing becoming more rapid as she surrendered to his enchantment. Her eyes, filled with ardor for her cowboy, told him she craved more of his affection. Lots more.

His heart fluttered in anticipation of discovering her feminine charms. He had resisted doing so that night in the Noscut jail cell, for her title was not yet Mrs. Kai Smith. Tonight, however, she was his woman, officially and forever.

He paused, just for a moment, to blow out the candle on the bedside table.

Kai had just extinguished one flame, but the fire within a Ninjago cowboy glowed brightly with a passion that refused to be controlled any longer.

Sam's last coherent thought of the evening, before being swept away on the wave of intense desire, was to decide to wait until the morning to tell Kai that she was the beneficiary of Bansha's wealth. They could focus on money tomorrow.

Tonight, they were going to focus on love.

**** The End ****


End file.
